The Pride of Northam
by Jammer69er
Summary: As the forge world of Bolias suffers an Ork incursion, the soldiers of the 19th Northam Guard regiment head into battle against their oldest enemy.
1. 1: Steel of Northam

**The Pride of Northam**

 _The Steel of Northam_

 _With which we face adversity_

 _The Fury of Northam_

 _With which we cut down the enemies of Mankind_

 _The Pride of Northam_

 _With which we honour our service to the Emperor_

 _-The regimental motto of the Northam Guard_

 _In the year 966 of the 41_ _st_ _Millenium, the Forge World of Bolias came under attack from an immense fleet of Orks that had been carving a path of destruction through neighbouring systems for some months beforehand. The planet's PDF forces put up a valiant struggle, but as days passed without any breakthrough on either side, additional Imperial Guard forces were summoned into the sector to aid in the fight against the Orks – the world was responsible for the production of numerous Leman Russ tank variants, including the valued Vanquisher pattern, and if the manufactorums were to fall into enemy hands then the system's battle against the invaders would become even more pronounced. To this end, a portion of Battle Group XIX which was currently leaving the system after freeing the nearby Thrassus System from an Ork incursion, was diverted to assist the defenders._

 _Amongst the half dozen regiments that deployed onto Bolias were the 19th and 21st regiments of the Northam Guard_ _. The soldiers of Northam were well-known within the Segmentum Obscuras for their historic actions against the Ork empire which neighboured their home system ever since the original founding of the colony upon Northam Prime some three hundred years past. Proud and skilled soldiers, even the Northam guardsmen found themselves faced with incredible odds on the battlefields of Bolias._

 _Yet each man in the Imperial Guard must honour their blessed duty to the God Emperor, and so the Northam Guard headed into the hell of war..._

 **Chapter 1: Steel of Northam**

 **132.966.M41, Forge World Bolias, Segmentum Obscuras**

" _Incoming!"_

Another brace of roughly-hewn Roks overhead. One of them slammed into the side of a hab tower and collapsed several tons of rockcrete, throwing up an immense cloud of dust. Several more went wide though, slamming into the mustering fields beyond that were once used by the Bolias PDF on drill manoeuvres. The ground shook with each impact, as the Roks no doubt released their living cargo of dozens of Orks.

"Up! Up!" called Lieutenant Lexanus of the 19th Northam Guard regiment- "Up and forward! Make ready for the Ork's charge!"

Lexanus was a fairly handsome man in his mid thirties, standing just over six feet tall with closely-cropped blonde hair and blue eyes, his physique one of a career soldier- harsh training and the trials of war having stripped all fat from his body, leaving only muscle and sinew in its place. He waved his laspistol in the air, and several members of his platoon filed past, hunched down in a crouch-walk posture, lasguns held close to their bodies.

They were all soldiers of the 19th regiment of the Northam Guard- their uniform consisting of dull blue flak armour and helmets, grey fatigue jackets and pants, black leather boots and webbing, their recently-polished lasguns now flecked with dust and dirt and the odd splatter of blood. Some of the troopers carried assault weapons such as flamers, plasma guns, and grenade launchers instead, or hefted the parts of heavy weapons in pairs.

It had only been a couple of hours since they had first made planetfall on the agri-fields that had been scorched and ravaged by the Ork invaders, and since then they had been pushing Northwest through what remained of the Western Hab-blocks, to meet the Ork hordes which had been after the Tank Manufactorums. If the Greenskins managed to take control of those buildings, then they could easily churn out countless Leman Russ tanks with which to add to their vehicle armaments, and in doing so make their eviction from Bolias much harder and costly.

" _Spread out! Spread out!"_ cried each of the sergeants in turn, and the troopers fanned out amongst the rubble and twisted wreckage of PDF fighting vehicles, setting up heavy weapons on their bipods or hunkering down into cover positions. Soon enough just over two hundred guardsmen had spread out to cover the wide expanse of expressway. The thuds of the Roks making planetfall continued for another minute, and then finally fell silent, the cacophony of noise soon being replaced by a low, steady rumble of the ground. A fog of dust drifted past, preventing them from seeing too far ahead.

"Here they come," called Captain Yendil, E Company commander, his bolt pistol drawn. "Form up and fix bayonets. Flamer units to the fore, save your plasma and melta fire for armour units." As always, Yendil maintained his utterly calm and collected persona, even with the prospect of heavy combat ahead of them. Then again the Captain had been doing this for his entire career, having started as a dog soldier to begin with, slogging his way up to his current position as company commander. Most of the Northam commanding officers were of the same – there was no easy path for their kind.

There was a chorus of dull clicking as each guardsman drew his bayonet – twelve inches of solid steel with a triangular tip and a savage-looking serrated edge on the lower side – and snapped it into the lugs beneath the barrel of their weapon, before holding them to ready, stocks firmly clamped against shoulders.

"Form ranks!" yelled Lexanus, and somewhere to his right, the call was echoed by one of his brother officers. The Northam guardsmen divided themselves into two distinct lines of bodies – the line at the front crouched down among the dust and masonry, lasguns raised, while the second line remained standing, aiming over their fellows heads. Those with assault weapons stayed off to the side or switched out for lasguns and laspistols instead.

"Heavy weapon squads, set up an overwatch position in that hab block," called out Lexanus, indicating towards a half-collapsed tower which gave a perfect firing angle out across the battlefield before them. A couple of squads helped their comrades in hefting the heavy weapon units up through the rubble, bedding them down securely on their tripod mounts, and affixing the ballistic shields to protect the gunners. Officers took up their scopes and viewfinders and began to mark effective ranges.

"Contacts front!" bellowed one of the lookouts through the crackle of the unit's vox-link. "Repeat! A lot of bloody contacts front!"

"Prepare to engage!" yelled Yendil, drawing his curved sabre.

From out of the rubble of what used to be the causeway to the mustering grounds, dozens of figures were starting to scramble out into view. Soon that trickle was becoming a flood, dozens of figures becoming a hundred, and then two hundred, and triple that number in no time at all. They were all the same- large, powerfully-built green-skinned figures with jutting jaws, their clothing and armour scrounged from a number of sources. They were armed with crude handguns or machinegun weaponry, firing them randomly, or heavy-looking axes, knives and clubs.

The Orks surged forwards, roaring their barbaric war cries, brandishing their weapons. Close-combat was what they craved, where they could use their sheer numbers and brute strength to cut a swathe through the ranks of the Northam guardsmen. The hope was that Yendil's own men could hopefully thin out their ranks enough so they would be on a fairer footing when the crunch came. The Captain crunched around in the masonry, and then keyed his micro bead to his squad's vox caster.

"All squads, pick your targets!" bellowed the Captain, and there was a bustle of motion as every guardsmen, raised their lasguns up and prepared to fire. Their aim was true and unwavering, exactly what was to be expected of any true Northam fighting man. Even with a stampeding horde of greenskins before them, not one of them showed any sign of balking.

"Steady!" called Lexanus, drawing his own sabre, holding it aloft for all those in his platoon to see. The sabres utilised by Northam officers were considered true symbols of their authority and rank, and in the midst of the most brutal melees, the soldiers always knew to look for the curved swords held high for all to see, both as a rallying point or an incentive to keep fighting.

The Orks were about to come within range of the Northam Guard's weapons. They were returning fire with their own ramshackle weaponry, and as expected of their kind, most of it went wide or never even came at all as the weapons malfunctioned and exploded in their hands. A few of their shots were on target though, and a handful of men in the front rows pitched over, dead or screaming for a medic.

"Volley, fire!" cried Yendil, letting his Sabre fall. The call was repeated back and forth along the lines, between platoon and squad leaders.

There was a terrific whining note as nearly a hundred lasguns opened fire, sending sizzling bolts of white energy into the teeming Ork horde. Dozens of the beasts went down in crumpled heaps, some of them smashed off of their feet by precise shots to the head. Those that were wounded didn't fare much better, as they were trampled into the ground by the iron-shod boots of their fellows, all too eager to get into the fight.

"Second volley, fire!" bellowed Yendil, letting his sabre fall again.

Another shrieking whine, another volley of burning las-fire from the second rank of bodies, and yet more Orks hit the ground in heaps. Already their blood was tracing crimson tracts through the grey dust that littered the ground.

"Third volley, fire!" cried the captain once more, and his sabre fell for the third time in the space of a minute. The guardsmen fired again. As the volley cut the Ork horde down a little more, the captain switched his micro-bead link to the heavy weapon teams who were overlooking the chaos with their ranges already found. "Heavy weapons, fire at will!"

Then there was another- much louder- cacophony of sound as the heavy weapon teams, comprised of heavy bolters, autocannons, and missile launchers, opened up. Entire bodies were torn in half or even into bloody chunks, missiles throwing bodies into the air or pulping them wholesale. It was a complete massacre in the favour of the Northam guardsmen, and within the space of a few minutes they had slaughtered at least three hundred of the green-skinned beasts, for the loss of only thirteen of their own number.

But the Orks kept coming. "Fire at will!" screamed Yendil, and the order went down through the platoon leaders.

"Fire at will!" screamed Lexanus, and his platoon gladly opened fire, sending wave after wave of las-fire into the smoke and dust fog. The Lieutenant added his own volley of shots from his pistol into the fray, and he saw at least one Ork go down flailing in the smoke, trailing black blood.

Yendil fired his bolt pistol into the gloom, watching at least two Ork bodies explode and come apart in bright bursts of red fluid, before he could hear the chime of another vox link in his ear. He quickly ducked down behind a row of bodies, and snatched up the vox horn offered to him.

"This is B, come in E."

"This is E, go ahead," responded Yendil. The voice belonged to Major Dolan, the 19th's 1st Officer, and commander of B Company. Currently, the Major, alongside A and D companies, were advancing around the western flank half a kilometre away so the regiment could come upon the Manufactorum from both sides to scissor the Ork horde.

"C, we've run into some pretty serious resistance," explained Dolan, his voice wavering as the signal waxed and waned within Bolias' towering rockcrete buildings. "It's taking us longer than expected to reach the Manufactorum, and the PDF regiments we were meant to relieve have taken heavy casualties."

"How heavy?" asked Yendil, even over the shrill scream of someone calling for a medic.

"Almost to the man," responded Dolan. In the background Yendil could hear the shrieks of lasguns firing and the heavier retorts of support weapons, and the odd scream of pain. "We've found a few survivors, but they were so broken they were no help. We'll have to fix this ourselves."

"Damn," cursed Yendil, murmuring a slight prayer for those PDF men. "Major, what do you need us to do?" the Captain then asked, putting the conversation back on track. "We're not far from the Manufactorum's eastern end, but we don't want to go in there unsupported."

"Hold that thought," said Dolan, and then the line went quiet, as he no doubt went to consult with the Colonel. Fifty yards away a rocket went off, showring Yendil and his squad in a shower of rockcrete chips. After a few moments, the Major dropped back onto the line, his voice a little clearer. "C, A advises that you proceed to the Manufactorum and hold position for reinforcement. Elements from the 36th Armoured are en route to support."

"Good to hear," responded Yendil, before he heard the sudden whoosh of flames, and the pained shrieks of nearly a dozen of his men as the fire from an Ork burna engulfed them. "Emperor's breath! We have contacts!" And with that, he cut the vox link to the Major and leapt up, drawing his pistol.

"Damn it! Get those flamers up! Push them back!" screamed Lieutenant Odey to the left, even as his command squad helped him back from the withering heat, the flames having licked the left side of his face, leaving him with a painful burner tan. The flamers on the Northam's side were soon ignited, a great wave of blazing promethium licking out into the remnants of the Ork horde, and soon enough the air was filled with the acrid stench of burnt flesh. Somewhere else, a grenade went off and caught the fuel tanks of one of the burnas, and a sudden fireball engulfed several more greenskins.

"Forwards! Forwards!" bellowed Yendil, waving his arm frantically. "We have to reach the Manufactorum!"

"What's the good word?" called Lexanus as he suddenly appeared at the Captain's side. Yendil slapped a fresh clip into his bolt pistol and turned to face Lexanus.

"The Colonel's division is running into a lot more resistance than we expected," he explained, pausing for a few moments to put a bolt round through the skull of an Ork Nob which had just torn Sergeant Tathlis in half with a power claw. "But Cadogus is bringing his armour up to support us until they catch up. Right now we have to keep going! Through these bastards!"

"Right," responded Lexanus, drawing his own laspistol and raising it. "Forwards!" he called as he walked back to his platoon, the order being repeated further down the line as platoon commanders roused their men up and urged them on. And with that, the men of the Northam 19th marched onwards, bayonets fixed, towards their objective, firing from the hip. The once-assaulting Orks were driven back, cut down like dry grass by spurts of flame, or cut apart by las fire and support weapons.

* * *

Half a kilometre to the west, another division of the 19th's active forces continued their ceaseless trudge onwards. The promenades and the ruined workshops they advanced through were carpeted with hundreds of corpses, human and Ork alike. Distressingly, an overwhelming proportion of the bodies belonged to the Bolias PDF regiments, many of them hacked apart messily or burnt to crisped skeletons. The odd tank wreck littered the space too, smouldering and belching black smoke into the sky.

Squads of blue-armoured guardsmen advanced forwards in a leap-frog fashion, moving forwards to fresh cover positions and providing covering fire for their fellows to move up behind them, constantly trading fire with the Ork Shoota, Tankbusta and Loota mobs that had fortified the abandoned buildings in their own indomitable fashion, riveting thick plates of scavenged steel and other materials to the doors and windows. A rocket was fired off from one shed, which trailed far above and took out a half-collapsed shack.

"Down, down!" cried Sergeant Bowman as his squad- reduced to seven men including himself over the last two hours- made their way to the burnt-out wreck of a Chimera chassis. Gunfire peppered the burned and warped steel, but otherwise held. About thirty yards in front of them, a workshed occupied by nearly a dozen Ork Shoota boys had them pinned down. In the dusty no-man's land behind the Guardsmen lay the recently-dead corpses of eight of their comrades.

"Damn, looks like they got this place locked down," gasped Trooper Joplis, pulling himself deeper into cover.

"Shut up," snapped Bowman savagely. Ulysses Bowman was one of those no-nonsense dog soldiers who had fought his way through half a dozen brutal campaigns and earned his hard-line reputation as a result. Though offered command of a platoon several times, he had kept command of his own squad of his own request. Some said it was because of sentiment, but would never dare say it to his face. He didn't earn his reputation by being soft and cuddly.

Bowman's face looked as though it were carved from a block of solid granite, his nose broken at least twice from previous actions against the Ork menace, having never healed and reset properly. His arms were sturdy like thick wooden boughs, marked with the tattoos in memory of mourned comrades and memorable kills, the sleeves of the standard-issue Northam fatigue jacket cut away to give him better freedom of movement in the midst of combat, a chainsword hanging at his waist for when the close combat came. His lasgun was a cut-down variant of the standard model, complete with a folding skeleton stock and top-mounted scope.

The rest of his squad were formed from the cream of the 19th's crop, comprising the more grizzled veterans from over five companies, pulled together as one as their squads were wiped out over time. Joplis was the most recent addition to their ranks- sarcastic and difficult as he could be- but a superb shot with even a standard-issue lasgun, hence his inclusion in the group.

"Beltan! Blow us an opening!" bellowed the sergeant. The burly Beltan, his torso laden with drum hoppers of grenades, eased himself up onto one knee, hefting his grenade launcher up and throwing open the revolving chamber, loading in one krak round and two frag rounds before snapping it shut.

"Good to go," the big man grunted. Bowman just hefted up his lasgun and looked at the others, giving them a brief nod.

"Covering fire!" he yelled, and they all popped out of their cover, sending a withering hail of las-fire towards the work shed. The Ork's return fire dwindled away to almost nothing, and Beltan swerved out into the open, raising his grenade launcher to eye level. He chuckled to himself.

"Ka-boom."

He pulled the trigger, and the krak round whistled out of the launcher's barrel with a spurt of grey smoke. It impacted against the nearside wall of the workshed and exploded, punching a hole six feet wide. He then fired off his two frag rounds, and they sailed into the now-open workshed with the trained expertise of someone who had built his Guard career out of blowing things up.

Smoke and fire gusted out of the windows and doorways of the workshed, along with the odd chunk of green Ork flesh. A few seconds later, the rest of his squad opened fire, sheeting las-fire into the massive hole that Beltan had punched through the wall, just to be sure. After a few seconds had passed, the fire stopped.

"Okay, that'll do!" called out Bowman, before flicking his micro-bead. "The shed's clear! Move up, move up!"

Several more squads of fellow Northam guardsmen began to push forwards about a hundred yards behind, some of them stopping to rip the tags away from the corpses of the fallen, only briefly considering the Ork corpses they stepped over. Somewhere ahead of them, gunfire was continuing to lick out at them from a half-collapsed hab-block, while more Orks were starting to advance on foot, shouting out in their brutal voices.

"Looks like we've still got a lot of work to do," reasoned Bowman, turning and rising to his feet. "Come on! Let's go!" He then lead the way forwards across the road, advancing parallel to two platoons that had fallen level with them. Leading one of them was a stocky man wearing an officer's peaked cap, his right hand encased in a bulky power glove.

Major Manfred Dolan advanced in his usual manner- grim-faced, bolt pistol in his left hand and the fingers in his power glove clenching over and over again, ready to taste blood. Dolan was one of those leaders who always got the job done, no matter what was asked of him, and he would gladly hurl himself into the thickest combat in order to accomplish that end. His left leg had been replaced with a bionic prosthetic two years previously, lost when a close encounter with the Orks of Apotheosis took his flesh and blood limb from him forever. It didn't slow him down much though- even combined with the adamantium right shoulder and the other internal bionics he had been fitted with since the loss of his arm.

He raised the bolt pistol to eye level and fired three shots into the Orks ahead of them, dropping two of them to the ground. "Pride of Northam! Forwards!" he cried out, his shout being transmitted to all others in B Company via the micro-bead and the vox-links. Their voices rose up into a battle-cry, many of them firing from the hip as the two forces readied themselves for the inevitable clash of bodies and steel.

This was what all warfare came down to, in the end. Though massed ranged artillery could whittle down enemy numbers, and massed armour clashes decided the balance of a significant campaign; in the very end it came down to the brutal, blood-soaked melees involving perhaps hundreds of bodies at a time, in so close that the hatred and the steel was white hot- your world reduced to the scant five or so feet around you, your senses sharpened to react to any incoming attack and counter-attack, in a brutal race to put your enemy down first.

Dolan began to race forwards, his power glove ready to strike, a hedge of bayonets flanking him on either side, lasguns blazing. The squads began to move in close to one another, forming a single, cohesive body. Behind them, the heavy weapon teams held their own positions within the remains of hab-blocks and other buildings, trading fire with the Orks still encased in the hab block or raining fire down on the rear portions of the main horde.

The inevitable collision of bodies came within the next two seconds.

The sheer kinetic force of the muscular Orks slamming into the human lines was enough to smash several men off of their feet, while sweeping axes, cudgels, and other weapons sliced through necks, arms and torsos with equal impunity. Blood sprayed and men screamed if they could. In retaliation, Imperial bayonets lanced through green flesh and into vulnerable internal organs, great spurts of blood erupting as they were ripped free. Some men fired their lasguns in order to free their blades.

Dolan raised his power glove and smashed it into the face of the Ork Nob which came straight at him, slamming the brute off of its feet and pulverising its skull. He then used the backswing to crush the skulls of three more regular Orks, firing his bolt pistol freely in his other hand, spinning a couple of bodies away. Another Ork tried its luck, but its choppa only glanced off of the casing from Dolan's power glove. The he slammed it into the greenskin's stomach, and then lifted it up and over his head, slamming it head-first into the ground. Another hacked down behind him, but the tip of its axe blade only chipped into the back of his carapace armour's breastplate. Grunting, Dolan turned and tore its head off with a wide sweep. Then almost as an afterthought, he turned and put a shell into the brain of the Nob he had knocked down to begin with as it struggled up.

Not too far away, Lieutenant Aldous Shaw of 4th Platoon lead at least three squads in assault formation into the melee, his lascarbine with fixed bayonet in his hands. He shot an advancing Ork straight through the head and then quickly turned to shoot a couple more as they tried to attack, bright red bolts erupting their skulls. A fourth one- one with plates of steel affixed to its shoulders and chest as improvised body armour, lunged in suddenly, its whirring chain axe taking off the heads of two of his command staff, showering him in blood.

He retaliated by driving the carbine's short, saw-toothed bayonet into the exposed flesh between the Ork's armour, thick blood squirting from the wound, and then he fired twice, tearing straight through the Ork's muscular body and dropping it alongside many more of its ilk. The ground was slick with blood and the corpses from both sides of the conflict, but the end wasn't as close in sight as some of the Northam guardsmen wished. Shaw dropped low suddenly and rolled away, coming up and firing off the remainder of his cell, destroying legs and shins. Large bodies hit the ground.

A mob of Orks perched on one of the civilian walkways that flanked the promenade tried to raise their shootas to bear, but a frag grenade trailing a line of black smoke arced in and landed in the midst of them, blowing several apart in a spray of green, fleshy chunks and rockcrete. The debris tumbled down onto the main approach, crushing several more Orks and a few Gretchin into the bargain.

"Nice shot," complimented Bowman from behind a burnt-out Leman Russ chassis.

"Thanks, boss," responded Beltan, as he reloaded his grenade launcher. Beside him, the remainder of the veteran squad fired a few more shots towards the advancing horde ahead, dropping a few of them. "But I don't have enough grenades for all of them!"

"None of us have enough ammo for all of them!" Joplis shouted back, taking a few moments to raise his lasgun and fire a single shot that took the top off of an Ork skull, before he leaned back and slapped in a fresh cell. "We're all fragged at this rate!"

"You're not helping Joplis, so can it," barked Bowman, as an Ork missile screeched overhead and blew out the front of a hab block. "We've been through worse before, and I've never backed down from a challenge either!"

"That's good to hear, because I was worried you were getting soft on us, sergeant," crackled the voice of Major Dolan through Bowman's micro-bead. He sounded spirited despite the combat he was caught up in. "Don't you be disappointing me now, especially with the Colonel here. I need all the bodies I can muster, sergeant."

"Sure thing, Major," smirked Bowman. Then he reached down to his waist and unslung his chainsword, clutching it in his right hand and slinging his lasgun around his shoulder. "You heard the man, let's go help out." And with that, he rose to his feet and rounded the chassis, rushing ahead towards the almighty melee that was going on at that moment.

"Hope you're not averse to a little blood letting," was all Beltan said to the others, before he was up and racing after Bowman. The others followed close behind with fixed bayonets or their own personal melee weapons, eager to exact their own blood toll.

There was a whining note as Bowman's chainsaw swept through the air, taking off the heads of two Orks who hadn't been paying proper attention, before he swept down and split another open from neck to waist. Then the rest of his squad had joined him, thrusting their bayonets or swinging hatchets and clubs into skulls and any other vital area they could reach. Though Orks were more resilient and savage than humans, they weren't as agile or responsive, something that Northam Guardsmen had learned to take advantage of over years of battling the green skinned menace both in their home system and elsewhere in the sector.

In the next promenade over- barely a hundred yards from where Dolan was standing and separated by a row of largely-intact hab blocks and local businesses- the 19th's A Company was going to work. A Company had some of the best fighters within its ranks, including a couple of specialised support weapon teams- who were there primarily to engage and destroy enemy armour units, clear out buildings, and attend to other fluid combat scenarios as well as an attached squadron of sentinel walkers armed for heavy conflict. The machines stalked ahead through the rubble on their long legs, their autocannons spitting explosive death.

At the very front of the melee, there was a flash of blue light and a crackling trail was drawn in the air in a six-figure shape- and then it sliced down, tearing through an Ork torso to let two separate body parts fall to the dusty ground. The figure holding the power sword turned quickly and swept the blade at head height, decapitating a few more Orks as they closed in on him. And then he twisted it around and thrust it backwards under his armpit, into the stomach of a towering Nob that had been ready to club his brains out with a massive two-handed cudgel.

Colonel Gaius Nova ripped the sword free, but the Nob was still alive, trying to raise its cudgel to strike at him once again, but he casually swept his sword for a third time, the blazing blue light slicing off the greenskin's hands. As it bellowed in rage and agony, he planted the sword straight down through the centre of its skull. He kicked its dead weight backwards as blood jetted up from its split cranium.

"Filthy greenskins," he spat in contempt.

Gaius Nova had been a veteran of the Northam Guard for the past twenty years, having served with the 19th for fifteen of those, transferring following the near-destruction of the 43rd Northam during the Third Apotheosis Cleansing. He'd worked his way up to overall command of the regiment since then, having served as Colonel for six years now. Nova was a tall, well-built figure- just over six feet tall- with graying hair and a body that showed the toll of his life in the Guard- his lower right leg and his left forearm were cybernetic implants, taken from him by the Orks in past engagements. His uniform was practically identical to that of the rank-and-file Northam soldiers, though instead of the standard flak armour his torso was protected by sheets of sturdy carapace, along with pads on his knees and elbows, a small box at his waist projecting a refractor field around him to act as a shield from gunfire.

There was a guttural shout and he ducked as an Ork choppa sailed over his head, and in response he sliced his power sword up, hacking through the choppa's hilt and the greenskin's upper torso and head. Just as quickly, Nova had to sweep the sword around and slice it through another muscular torso, and then through a couple of necks. Blood had splattered all over his uniform and his bare face, but he didn't even slow down. Holding the sword's hilt with both hands, he swept it back and forth with perfect timing, deflecting some attacks and slicing straight through others. His command squad were close on his heels, blasting left and right while a flamer roared close by, incinerating more of the enemy.

One last Ork- a particularly massive specimen with slabs of pure muscle rippling along its arms- came directly at him, having just chopped Corporal Reiss and his fire team to a bloody mess within a matter of seconds. It swept its two-handed choppa at his head, but he easily hopped away from the blow, kicking his cybernetic leg into the back of its knee joint to force it to kneel, and then rammed his sword pommel into its face, cracking a couple of its large fangs.

It staggered back, seemingly shocked at how this lowly human could get the better of it. Then it roared in fury and tried to swing at him again, but he casually swerved his body around the blade as it came down, and then sliced his sword across its right arm, slicing a deep crevasse into the flesh. It roared once again and slammed the hilt of its axe into Nova's side, sending the Colonel sprawling in the dust. It then reared over him to bring its axe down, but Nova rolled out of the way effortlessly. Despite his age, Gaius Nova kept himself in impressive shape, all things considered. It had saved his life on more than one occasion.

The Ork swung its choppa at him once more, but Nova sliced open the back of its hand with a deft flick of his sword, and it drew back slightly. Nova then swung back, slicing open the Ork's stomach- and allowing most of its guts drop out all over him, slathering himself in foul blood. The greenskin was too busy howling in agony to realise though, and it sank to its knees, one clawed hand clutching at its grievous wound.

Standing up with a grimace, Nova raised his sword to a level parallel to the Ork's thick neck and drove it forwards, as though he were spearing a sausage with a fork. The Ork's eyes went impossibly wide in shock, and then just as quickly the Colonel pulled his sword free and swung it to his upper right, lopping off the greenskin's sizeable skull in one stroke. The head popped straight up into the air, turning end over end.

As its huge body toppled like a felled tree (closely followed by its skull), Nova glanced up and saw several more Orks standing by and watching him warily, as he stood surrounded by bodies. He raised the sword and pointed the tip towards them. They backed away slowly.

"Who's next?" he asked rhetorically, but the Orks had apparently had enough, turning and fleeing back the way they had come, pursued by Nova's soldiers. "Just like I thought," the Colonel said.

"Colonel!"

Nova turned to see a few men from his command squad come running up, headed up by his adjutant, Sergeant Archer. One of the men behind him clutched something wrapped closely in cracked, worn leather under one arm, a laspistol in his other hand. "Colonel, we're making good time now- the Manufactorum's just at the end of the avenue."

"Good," Nova responded, as he flicked some blood off of his power sword with a quick wrist motion. "Hopefully Cadogus and Yendil can meet up with us by then. We can't rely on the PDF anymore- what's left at least."

"Unfortunately," responded Archer, as squads started to move past to continue their advance towards their objective, some of them hefting heavy weapons. Others carried flamers which they used to drive the Orks even further back. "Most of them were wiped out in the first hours- they just weren't equipped for a full-scale Ork invasion."

"We are though," responded Nova, powering his sword down and sheathing it within its scabbard. Then he drew his other weapon- an ancient plasma pistol which had served him as well as the sword had. He flicked down the activation switch on the rear of the pistol and it activated with a low hum and a blue glow from its energy cell.

"Give me the horn," he then said, extending his other hand out. His signals officer, Kilo, crouched down and handed the Colonel the speaker set for the bulky vox set he carried on his back. "Get me a link to the Major and the Captain." Kilo nodded, twisting the dials on his set, nodding once the links were established.

"This is A Leader, do you read?"

"Read you loud and clear, A," came the relatively clear voice of Dolan.

"Read you, A," answered the crackling voice of Captain Luca Farron, who was currently clearing the Justine Hab Blocks to the West alongside his own company, C, and D company lead by Captain Jenson.

"We're coming up to the Manufactorum now," Nova explained, as more squads filtered past. "Give me an update- I don't won't to be heading in there unsupported."

"We're nearly free," Dolan responded, pausing for a brief moment to shout a few orders at his men, "we just need to deal with the last of this rabble. They've got a mob of Nobs driving them on, and the smaller ones would rather face us than one of their own in a foul mood."

"The Orks are still thick here," Farron answered, "and they've got a few looted Leman Russ tanks with them. We've got some Bolian armour following up behind in support though, so with any luck we can break through soon enough."

"Alright- then in the name of Northam and the Emperor, let's make these xenos regret ever coming here," responded Nova, looking up the street as the infantry lead the way. "The Empror Protects."

"The Emperor Protects", chorused Farron and Dolan together, and then their vox links were clear. Colonel Nova looked around at his ever-vigilant command squad.

"Sergeant Archer?"

"Colonel?" responded his adjutant, snapping to attention.

"We're moving out, full force- spread the word. Corporal?"

"Colonel?" asked the man cradling the leather-wrapped object, also snapping to attention.

"You can prepare the banner now." The Corporal's face brimmed with pride, and he holstered his laspistol, and then startled to carefully unwrap the leather, one of the other troopers helping him out. The unfurled leather was folded up and stowed away in a pouch on the Corporal's back, and then three more Northam troopers helped him to unfurl the heavy cloth inside, and then the Corporal hefted up a heavy steel pole, and the banner of the 19th regiment furled out behind him.

The sigil of the Northam Guard was proudly displayed: a bold image of mountain peaks in white, bisected with a dagger with its point aiming straight down towards the ground. The banner at the bottom of the design was inscribed 'Pride of Northam', with the regimental motto of Northam Prime in golden script beside it. Below the sigil was 'XIX' in huge, solid lettering, and then inscribed on either side and below the numbering were the names of past victories and fallen heroes in more golden script. The banner showed signs of considerable wear alongside its banner pole and with the odd bullet hole that hadn't been stitched, though many would say that constituted part of the banner's history.

"Pride of Northam... _forward, for the Emperor!_ " bellowed Gaius Nova, raising his plasma pistol.

The sounds of battle were drowned out by the roar of his troops as he lead them on, to victory.

 **A/N: Hello fellow users - first off, this is the first piece of work I have uploaded onto the website related to Warhammer 40,000, even though I've had the idea for this for a long time. In an ideal world, 'Pride of Northam' is intended as a short introduction piece to the 19th Northam Guard Regiment, who will then serve as the stars of an upcoming full length fic set a couple of years after the events of the war on Bolias. Well the ones who survive anyway, since the Imperial Guard is not exactly a long-term occupation for many.**

 **Also, this is the first fic I have uploaded to the site in over a year and as such my writing may not be up to its previous standard, so I apologise if there are any glaringly obvious mistakes I missed in my proofreading. And I would appreciate any and all reviews and constructive criticism too about future updates. Thanks!**


	2. 2: Fury of Northam

**Chapter 2: Fury of Northam**

' _Now, I've travelled the galaxy and fought on a dozen planets – but that damned forge world was nearly the death of me. We should have been on our way home by then.' – **Ulysses Bowman, Sergeant, 19**_ ** _th_ _Northam Guard, B Company, after the Relief of Bolias_**

The Justine hab-blocks had once housed the multitude of workers for Bolias' grand manufactorums, except now it was a charnel house piled high with the corpses of the dead (Ork and human alike), and the shattered rockcrete rubble from where Ork rokks and heavy artillery had impacted against buildings. And right now the fighting continued, as Boilas armour in red and black paint jobs, including Leman Russ battle tanks and lighter Hellhound flamer tanks, advanced up the main promenade. A Vanquisher-pattern Leman Russ fired, it's AT round completely annihilating an Ork battlewagon at the far end of the promenade.

Within one of the closely-built hab units, Captain Farron of the 19th Northam Guard's C Company lead at least three dozen of his men through the smoke-choked passages of the living spaces, stepping over dead bodies as they went. Somewhere up ahead, they could hear the screaming and shouting of the enemy. The vox link crackled on occasion, feeding progress updates from the remainder of his company and Captain Jenson's D Company, who were advancing up through the Northern sector of the blocks, clearing out the Orks unit by unit as they went. Farron, for his part, was advancing his Company parallel to the main promenade which the workers would have taken to the Manufactorums in time for day cycle. It was a simple paved walkway wide enough for twenty people to walk side by side up, with regular flights of shallow steps and footbridges which crossed over at regular intervals.

And then suddenly they exited through the far door in the passage and they exited out onto an observation balcony, with a perfect view of the hell below them. Greenskins swarmed the pathways and the promenade which lead up to the rear of the Northern Manufactorum- amongst their ranks were a few crude, clanking dreadnoughts- mockeries of the powerful war machines deployed by the Adeptus Astartes. At the far end of the wide approach, a handful of Leman Russ tanks, looted by the Orks, were idling, their main turret weapons slowly tracking around to acquire a target. Each one was surrounded by a handful of Orks who banged at its side with crude tools, trying to work out the unfamiliar machinery.

One of the tanks fired suddenly, but it fell considerably short and blew out the side of a hab unit about fifty yards away from the Northam positions, raining rockcrete chunks down onto their beleaguered heads.

"Perfect," Farron muttered, looking back over his shoulder. "Get the launchers prepped!" he then yelled, as a few support teams set about getting the heavy tubes prepared, braced against the lip of the balcony. Then fire from some Orks began to chip away at the rockcrete, and the remaining troops ducked down into cover as quickly as they could manage. One of them was a little too slow, and a slug struck him in the left shoulder, knocking him down hard. A corpsman ran to his aid.

"Return fire!" Farron yelled over the din, and several dozen of the guardsmen swung themselves up out of cover, their lasguns resting on the lip of the balcony, and began to sheet return fire down into the massed green ranks. Several greenskins shuddered and fell, while others just took glancing wounds and fired back. The return fire accuracy was woeful, as expected. Then the launchers fired, and the first one took apart one of the dreadnoughts in a blossom of shrapnel, the others chewing through the main trunk of the Ork column. They were spoilt for targets.

"Sergeant Drake?" asked Farron into his micro-bead over the explosive harmonies.

"Sir?"

"Take your heavy teams up into that observation port," he said, pointing up towards the next observation deck along – a rockcrete cube set up on a thick pylon, with a good overview of the entire promenade. All around them, tracer fire zipped out, gouging out chunks of rockcrete and steel.

"Yes sir," came the reply, and then the link was cut. About forty yards behind Farron's right shoulder, one of his sergeants looked around at the dozen men surrounding him and barked off some commands in Northam combat-cant, and then they rose in a crouch walk and shuffled off past their brothers, shouldering support bipods, rocket tubes and other heavy weapons. They passed through a gate ahead and vanished from view. A minute later, an affirmative crackled back through the vox, and then the first of the autocannons were firing.

"The rest of you, lay it on!" the Captain yelled, popping up and streaming off fire from his lasgun. Down below more mobs of Shoota Boyz were beginning to file into the promenade to reinforce those that remained, while the remainder of the green horde continued to flood down the walkways to mill around the Imperial armour that had now slewed to a halt and was returning fire with their sponson weapons.

Several Orks chipped away at the flank of a Leman Russ with their choppas, not realising the fact they were just inches away from a Heavy Bolter sponson, until it turned and roared to life, blowing a few of them apart and sending the others running. But then behind them was a Tankbusta in crude armour who swung a steel pole with a rocket welded to the end around in a wide arc and it went off with a burst of white light, tearing off half of the sponson housing and eliciting a scream from inside the hull.

"Protect the armour!" yelled Farron, and immediately several of his men changed their aim towards the Orks attacking the tanks, dropping several and sending the others scattering, including a few more Tankbustas armed with rocket poles. A second Leman Russ took a rocket pole to the track assembly, and a thick tread went spinning away like a wounded python. The top hatch banged open and the commander appeared, firing an autopistol down at the greenskins assaulting his vehicle. He sent one spinning to the ground, but then a second clambered up onto his tank from behind, raising his choppa to strike.

Then a las bolt took off its head and sent it tumbling back, streaming blood. The tank commander looked around, and then promptly vanished back inside his vehicle. The wounded tank began to whirl around and then limped forwards several feet, clearing the way for its fellow tanks. The first wounded vehicle moved on, despite the flaming hole in its side. There was a brief hiss as one of the surviving crew used a fire extinguisher, and then the flames were gone.

"That's it, keep moving," whispered Farron. Down below, another of the tanks fired, and two hundred yards down the concourse a walkway teeming with orks exploded. The remaining Bolian armour pushed forwards, crunching over Ork bodies and pulverising rockcrete to dust. Hellhounds advanced ahead of the slower main battle tanks, belching spears of flame up onto the walkways that thronged with greenskinned brutes. The Vanquisher fired again, crippling another Battlewagon, closely followed by two standard tanks which decimated a larger mob of Orks that were closing in. Up above, the Northam C Company continued to provide covering fire at the Tankbusta Mobs that were intent on blunting the armoured elements.

Farron smiled to himself as his most recent shot felled a Tankbusta by lancing straight through its sternum, and he leaned back to reload his weapon. At that moment he heard a familiar braying cry and he looked to his left in time to see more Orks pouring from out the entrance to the hab block the Northam soldiers had taken up residence beside. Several of Farron's men turned and fired instinctively, though some of them couldn't find the space to turn and were cut down before they could react.

"Damn!" Farron yelled as he saw Sergeant Wick decapitated by a choppa, his skull spinning off over the tanks below. "Pride of Northam, fix Bayonets! Repel, _repel!_ " He screamed that last word at them, but by then the Orks were all over C Company's position. There was precious little time to fix bayonets, let alone anything else.

* * *

Several kilometres away at the foot of the mountain range which ringed Bolias, another band of Orks were sacking the high governor's palace, the once fine-carpeted floors and richly-furnished rooms now being picked over by knots of savage, green-skinned aliens who overturned the wardrobes, pulled out armfuls of silk, satin and other fine cloth and devoured what remained of the fine dinner that had been put on for the governor and his family the day before. They joked between themselves as they did, and at one point two of the larger brutes nearly came to blows as they fought over a particularly large medallion studded with tiny diamonds.

Thankfully, said governor and associated family had been evacuated off-world hours after the invasion, though odd aide, family life guard and Arbites remained behind to mount a half-hearted defence of the ancient building. Their ruptured bodies lay here and there, unnoticed by the brutes who stepped back and forth over them, laughing amongst themselves as one of them found a large jewellery box and pulled out handfuls of long golden chains and bracelets.

One of them draped the chains around his thick neck and laughed hoarsely. Others hung the bracelets around their fangs, like some morbid dental accessory. They laughed again, even as red targeting lasers began to slowly drift up their broad bodies, fixing a bead upon their heads. One of the more observant greenskins noticed the laser on the one opposite him, and raised his hand to point it out, eyes widening.

But then it was too late.

There was the combined whine of half a dozen las weapons discharging, and a half second later several Orks crumpled to the floor, their heads just gone. The other greenskins jerked back, crying out in shock and grabbing for their weapons, but the weapons whined again and more of them crumpled. The last few remaining Orks turned to flee. Then the massive skylight in the visitor's room exploded and six figures in bulky carapace armour were descending on drop ropes, the eye slots on their armour glowing white.

Three of them let off a couple more shots, cutting down the fleeing Orks before they could reach the massive wooden doors to exit into the main dining hall. The figures touched down, casting off their drop ropes to let them ascend back to the skylight. Then they took up defensive positions, the targeting lasers of their weapons tracing across the walls and what remained of decorative tapestries the Orks had torn down hours before. Behind them, another half dozen armoured figures descended, taking up standing positions behind the first group.

"Clear," said one of them, his voice bearing a static edge through their helmets.

"B Leader, commence," another voice ordered, and then the squad of twelve advanced silently towards the main doors and took up their positions – four flanking the doors, and the remaining two standing just inside of the doors, their weapons raised. Two of the men flanking the door pulled out disc-like objects and clicked them onto the doors, twisting a centre dial to set a timer displayed as blinking red lights. Outside, there were thuds as more Orks came rushing to see what the commotion was, the snick of weapon slides being heard.

"B Team, commencing," crackled a calm voice in the ears of the squad. The Orks came to a halt outside of the doors, and prepared to kick through. At the same time, the timers on the directional limpet mines counted down and went off.

The mines spat out a twin cone of explosive force and shrapnel out through the wood doors and into the Orks waiting on the other side. Four of them were reduced to a bloody spray while another six were laid low by shrapnel and wood splinters which sliced open their bellies, throats and other soft tissue. They went spinning away, and the Orks which escaped the blast radius stumbled back, shrieking in surprise – and then they too were cut down by brutal, accurate shots which took their heads off.

The armoured soldiers strode out of the shattered doors through the cloud of splinters, tapestry fibres and blood mist. A couple of them separated from the group and executed the wounded Orks on the floor with close-ranged headshots. In the light one could make out the finer details of the squad. The carapace they wore was dull blue in colour, the helmets full-faced with blast cowls which could be retracted at will, and their weapons were hellguns – las weapons which could project a much more focused bolt which could punch through flesh and bone, and even through heavy armour. They were powered by bulky power packs worn on their backs, long cables trailing from the lower casing of the weapons into the packs. Two of the squad carried specialised weapons – a flamer and a grenade launcher, the latter having speed loaders of grenades dangling from around his shoulders.

The squad rounded the corner into the spacious dining hall, where even more Orks were rushing down the stairs at the far end, shouting threats at the armoured men who had so violently interrupted their looting. They fired off a few shots as they rushed down the hall, splitting when they reached the ebony table to rush down each side of the room.

And then the walls exploded.

More limpet mines – attached to the outside of the dining room walls – went off and shredded the two columns of Orks before they even had a chance to start their warcry. Those that were left – stumbling around in a haze of smoke, wood splinters and powdered rockcrete – struggled to get their weapons up and were cut down by more hellgun fire which came from outside. Then a second squad of armoured troopers entered through the new openings into the hall – six on either side.

"By all means, come in," said one of the first squad's troopers, lowering his hellgun slightly. The pips on his armaplas shoulder identified him as a Sergeant.

"Salutations sir," called one of the new arrivals in a sarcastic tone, sliding back the cowl of his helmet to reveal an aged, worn face. The type of face which had travelled the galkaxy for twenty years and seen all manner of things. "What about the guests?" he then asked, nudging a decapitated Ork skull away with the toe of his boot.

"Twenty dead here, another back there," said the Sergeant, thumbing back over his shoulder. "Auspex readings show up at least another fifty contacts in the palace. Mostly common rabble, but a few Nobs as well."

"Okay," said the second trooper, turning away and sliding his cowl back into place. "You know the deal – room-to-room clearance, cover each other's backs. Save the assault weapons for heavy numbers. Then we move outside and destroy their vehicles, radio to the commander and bug out."

"Affirmative," nodded the Sergeant, and then he tapped his micro-bead twice. "Move out."

Two dozen carapace-armoured troopers then moved out, their boots disturbing scattered cutlery, broken plates and sloshing through pools of blood. Their weapons aimed this way and that, more like extensions of their physical form rather than separate weapons and tools. Bright targeting lasers swept up and across walls and ceilings.

On their left shoulder were a series of bold white stripes to indicate their rank, with the lowest rank amongst the entire contingent being a corporal. On their right shoulder was the symbol of the Northam Guard – a stak white image of the craggy peaks of Northam Prime, bisected with a dagger emblem. On the scroll at the bottom of the design were the words _Pride of Northam_.

And so two squads of Northam Storm Troopers made their way through the ruins of the Bolian High Palace, laying waste to the Orks which drove at them around every corner and doorway. Not a shot was wasted – heads ruptured and chests were blown out with brutal accuracy, whereas Orks that were dropped with glancing hits were stood over and finished with a double-tap to the head or chest for insurance. When they cleared rooms, they split off into pairs or trios, each man covering one another and staying within touching distance of each other. Elsewhere, the trooper with the flamer gusted fire down a staircase into a guest room, burning out the Orks hidden inside. One of them flailed and fell against a nearby tapestry, sending it up in flames that began to creep across the ceiling.

The Storm Troopers only encountered their first real piece of significant resistance when Squad B pushed up towards what was the Governor's office, and the door suddenly exploded outwards and a towering Nob in Mega Armour strode out, black smoke belching from the engine stack on its back. The heavy shoota in its right hand blazed away, and the Storm Troopers divided their numbers in half as they went left and right into open doorways, the hail of fire from the Meganob reducing the furniture in the hall to matchwood. It took a single crushing step forwards, floorboards splintering under its weight. It barked something out in its harsh language and started to fire another deluge of tracer fire.

"Grenade!" yelled the squad sergeant, as he pulled a frag grenade from his belt and set the timer to two seconds, lobbing it out into the hallway. It detonated at the Meganob's feet, only knocking it off of balance long enough for the others to swing out into view and riddle the Ork's body with hellgun fire. It jerked and bawled at the impacts that drove at it like sheeting hail and tried to fire its shoota again, but then a krak grenade caught it in the centre of its broad torso and nearly punched it off of its feet. The Meganob wavered a little, and then three more accurate shots from a hellgun carried by a Corporal caught it in the face and blew the skull apart.

"Clear," deadpanned the sergeant. His team moved forward to secure the govenor's office, picking through the mess the greenskins had left. They found what they were after in the space of thirty seconds – a pile of message wafers and data slates containing the launch codes and encryption keys for the planet's orbital defence systems, as well as the programming codes for the planet's manufactorums. With those, the Orks could at least be slowed in accessing the systems operating the great factories.

"Package is secure," announced the Corporal dumping the intel into a ziplock bag and packing it away.

"Okay, all units, pull out," the sergeant announced, and his team began to make their way back through the palace to the front hall. But instead of going out the double front doors they headed up onto the first floor and out onto the massive balcony littered with marble furniture and steel, artificial roses. Down below the remainder of the Ork battlegroup who had come here in the first place were engaged in a fierce firefight with the rest of the Northam Storm Troopers who were hidden amongst the giant flower urns and garden furniture arrayed on the palace's front lawn, snapping off shots coolly as return fire shrilled back at them, shattering urns and tearing through thin steel.

"Lay it down!" cried the sergeant and his team began to sheet fire down into the Ork's numbers, cutting several down and leaving the remainder of them disarrayed as they scrambled for new cover. There were a pair of Nobs within the group bellowing commands and threats at their subordinates – at one point one of them grabbed a smaller Ork by the neck and smashed his face into the side of a truck a few times for some added 'incentive' before tossing it away.

Down below, the sergeant leading the second group ducked behind a solid piece of cover and activated the microbead inside his helmet. "Initiate Hellstorm."

Somewhere out in the artificial gardens that ringed the palace there were a series of distinctive, spitting howls, and then thick beams of concentrated las fire sheeted out from amongst the plastic trees and cut at least five Orks into two distinct pieces. As the bodies flopped over, blood sheeting from their rent torsos, the others lurched around to face this new prong of assault, but by then more fire was cutting through them, even as the second squad were suddenly advancing, firing from the hip.

"Pride of Northam!" someone was shouting as a third squad of Storm Troopers emerged from the trees, firing from the hip. Two of them were carrying heavier Hot-shot volley guns, firing salvos of devastating fire into the Orks. At least one of their trucks went up in a fireball. The remaining Orks were cut down in less than a minute. The second Nob leading them was the last to fall, and as it turned to try and flee, a Storm Trooper – identified as an officer due to the flowing cape and the tan beret he wore – shoved a bolt pistol into its face and fired, splattering its blood and liquefied brains across the wreck behind it.

"We're done here," said Captain Vlad Wilder, holstering his bolt pistol.

* * *

A and B Companies had succeeded to driving back the front edge of the Ork assault, but even as they were starting to pursue the survivors out across a sizeable plaza decorated with statues of prominent figures from Bolian history, they could already hear the braying of another horde closing in. Colonel Nova was running ahead as expected, the regimental banner trailing behind him as he exhorted his men onwards. Their spirirts were high, nigh-on unbreakable.

But then a considerable hail of gunfire suddenly sheeted in from seemingly nowhere, and over a dozen Guardsmen in the leading edge suddenly jerked and fell down, or simply came apart in a spray of blood. Their spirit wasn't as unbreakable as they originally thought at that point.

" _Cover, cover!"_ Major Dolan was screaming into his micro-bead, though the Northam didn't need to be told twice and in an instant they were all breaking for the nearest piece of cover amongst broken masonry, behind burned out vehicle wrecks or even within intact hab and business fronts, presenting a line of lasgun barrels for whatever was coming next. At least one man was left out in the open, his leg shot off, screaming for a medic, but there was no chance of anyone coming out into that firestorm. A minute later, a stray bullet found his skull and he lay still.

Bowman looked up from behind the cover of a ruined APC in time to see a pair of Ork battlewagons trundle from around the corner behind the habitat block directly across from his squad, at least two hundred Orks and several dreadnoughts gathering around the track units.

Both vehicles had been built around the shells of looted Imperium vehicles, and then 'altered' with the unmistakable Ork decorations of spikes, sheets of scavenged metal, and crude weaponry bristling from every potential mount the greenskins could find. One of them had been built around an Imperial Chimera troop carrier, with the turret replaced with some crude tower-like construct that reached a good twenty feet up into the sky, with Orks occupying the top and manning the weapons, while the second was based around the chassis of an Astartes Land Raider tank, almost dwarfing the first vehicle, its front ramps replaced with a peculiar setup resembling a pair of iron portcullises. The Orks inside jeered and yelled as they waited for the coming battle, rattling at the bars.

"Enemy armour front!" yelled Bowman into his micro bead, forcing himself deeper down into cover, his squad following suit as return fire began to strafe their position. To the left, support and heavy weapons began to open up from renewed positions. Rockets streaked in, one of them tearing off a heavy shoota mounted on the Land Raider's front left corner, but the heavy vehicle continued to trundle on. The altered Chimera took a rocket to the front plating, but it was a dud as it just pinged off and clattered away.

Gaius Nova may have been a fearsome warrior and an inspiring leader, but right then his skill with his sword and his words would do him little good, so he had his pistol drawn instead. He came up out of cover and fired off a couple of shots, bright blue bolts fizzling across the open ground and scoring deep burns into the flank of the Chimera Battlewagon but doing little else. "Find out where that armour is, Archer!"

"Trying the vox sir," called out Archer as he stood around the master vox set as signals officer Kendrick fiddled with the controls. "There's a lot of static. We're in amongst the structures, it's blocking the signal!"

"Perfect," growled the Colonel. His refractor shield fizzled as small arms fire stabbed at its edge, and somewhere behind his shoulder a couple of guardsmen pitched over, dead. "Golden Throne, you better be on your way, Fabien."

"Stay down!" bellowed Major Dolan about thirty feet to the right, shuffling even closer into his piece of cover as particularly heavy tracer fire strafed the Northam line. At least six more guardsmen were cut down for not being covered enough, heads or arms torn off. Corporal Teeg was amongst them, even as his squad tried to drag him to safety. "Throne, the armour _will_ be here!" He was trying to reassure them all, but even he wasn't so convinced.

The horde of greenskins around the two battlewagons was growing by the second now, and they could closer see the mob of clanking dreadnoughts within the throng too, alongside at least a dozen of the smaller Killer Kans, all bristling with weapons and decorated with skulls, helmets and other grisly trophies. The Orks were bearing aloft crude standards and chanting a name over and over in their guttural tongue as they beat arms against their chests or drummed their weapons against the ground. The main icon on each banner showed the classic Ork skull with its jutting jaw, though bisected down the centre with a long line.

" _...Skarskull! Skarskull! Skarskull!"_

"Who the hell is Skarskull?" asked Trooper Joplis, cowering in the cover of the APC's shell.

"Shut up," snapped Bowman, peering his head out, and then ducking it back in just as a few bullets struck the wreck and deflected off. He glanced back to see if his team were all in one peice, and then shuffled around to give himself an advantageous look as the Ork horde came closer. "Just focus on keeping the infantry occupied," he added, brining his lasgun up and firing off a few shots. Some seconds later, the rest of his squad joined in, and to their far left the guns of A and B Company opened up, sending waves of stinging las fire into the ranks of advancing Orks.

Many shuddered and fell, while others were blown apart by the heavier weapons. The Chimera-Battlewagon was strafed by a barrage of fire from a couple of autocannons, and another of its pintle mounts was blown off, leaving the passengers to shout and curse between one another, while elsewhere a krak missile punched into the side of the larger Battlewagon, rocking it sideways a little and blowing a few Orks into chunks, but otherwise doing little to slow it down. Its remaining weapons blazed, and though its aim was as terrible as any other Ork firearm, another seven Northam guardsmen were cut down in a spray of blood and shredding of flesh.

And then one of the rocket launchers perched on the Land Raider went right through the front of a tailor shop, and there was a loud crump, and then the entire building collapsed in on itself, crushing the thirty seven men who were cowering inside, along with Lieutenant Ross. None of them even had a chance to return fire against the enemy.

"Damn!" cried Dolan, firing off a few shots from his bolt pistol and then stepping back to reload it, tossing the spent magazine away. It formed a little pile on the floor alongside the spent power cells from his men's lasguns. "Stand firm, Pride of Northam!" he bellowed, swinging back out to fire again. But with no armour support, they would be overwhelmed in a few minutes.

Then there was a brief crackle of static which passed through the general channel, and several of the squad sergeants and platoon leaders paused what they were doing to check with their signals officers what that was about. None of them had an answer. And then there was another crackle, and the open channel filled with two simple words that all of the men instinctively knew of heart, as they threw themselves flat into whatever cover they could find.

" _Get down."_

Then there was a peculiar whistling – and the smaller battlewagon suddenly came apart in a grand conflagration of flame and shrapnel. The main body of the captured carrier just vanished in a blossom of flame, and then the tower section collapsed in on itself, bringing a dozen shrieking Orks with it. Those surrounding the vehicle were blown off of their feet by the shockwave, and then they scrambled up.

"Was that...?" asked Joplis quietly, looking around.

"Support," smiled Beltan, pointing in the direction they had come from.

Over and through the remains of the worksheds behind them came at least ten Leman Russ battle tanks, either bouncing up and down as they rolled over piles of rubble, or ploughing straight through buildings with their dozer blades lowered. Most of them were the standard pattern tank, though there were two Eliminators with the dual-linked autocannon mounts, a Demolisher siege-breaker and one tank-killing Vanquisher pattern. Their turrets traversed as they moved, and then fired.

Explosions erupted amongst the thick ranks of Orks on foot surrounding the battlewagons, or blew apart the dreadnoughts and killa kans with direct hits. The ground shook as each shell hit, tossing bodies into the air or scything shrapnel in all directions, shredding more bodies. The Orks – once on a confident advance – were now scattered and fleeing, completely taken aback by the very sudden and very destructive entrance of the Northam armour – moving quickly and firing with the utmost confidence – into the equation.

The guardsmen cheered wildly as the tanks came closer – half of them swinging into the gap between the right flank of A Company and Bowman's squad, and the other half moving around to the right or the Orks, continuing to fire at a ferocious rate, sponson and hull weapons coming into use. The Eliminators were amongst the right flanking move, their fast-firing weapons shredding through row upon row of green flesh and muscle. Elsewhere, the bastardised Land Raider was punched sideways as more shells slammed into its massive flank, and then another Vanquisher shell punched deep through its side and exploded its engine, which subsequently touched off its fuel and ammunition supplies, and the entire thing went up in a terrific explosion. The men cheered wildly.

"Up, up! Forward!" Nova was screaming, rising out of cover and moving towards the armour. "Pride of Northam! Forwards, to the end of this fight!" They all roared in approval, and charged en mass, bayonets fixed, firing from the hip. As the Colonel's command squad drew level with the central Leman Russ Demolisher – identified as the _KO Punch_ owing to the stencilled markings upon its side – the top hatch suddenly banged open and the tank commander stuck his head out, wearing a set of leather goggles and skullcap with a lead trailing down into the tank's belly.

"Good day Colonel," called the commander, and then lifted his goggles off of his eyes, the area around his blue eyes stark white from the muck of the tank interior. "Heard that you need some much-needed support."

"Yes, thank you for your impeccable timing as always Captain," chuckled Nova, and looked over at the other armour pieces as they chased after the Orks, throwing down more shells and heavy fire. "Where's the Major?"

"Leading the second thrust," Captain Lucain answered, and then indicated something out of sight with an outstretched hand. "We've cleared most of their armour and can push them right back away from the manufactorums, if you wish Colonel. The auspex readings are picking up more Ork armour moving in."

"That would be perfect Captain," nodded Nova, "clearing the manufactorum is an infantry's job. No offense."

"None taken," the Captain grinned, his teeth stark white against his blackened face. Then he put his goggles back on and retreated back inside of his vehicle, slamming the hatch shut. Then the Demolisher purred on, its mighty cannon firing with a retort that nearly knocked Nova off of his feet, but annihilated another Ork vehicle that he hadn't even seen. The tank's pintle mounted storm bolter began to blaze away, operating off of a remote link.

"Forwards, Pride of Northam!" the Colonel yelled, raising his plasma pistol again, urging his troops on. The banner of the 19th fluttered freely now, and a howl of agreement went up all around him. They surged on, the banner of the 19th flying free once more.

* * *

Farron hurdled over the dead bodies in front of him and speared his bayonet right into the chest of the first Ork he came to. The beast squealed and seemed to fold up as its heart was pierced, while all around it several of its fellow greenskins went down, shot, stabbed or slashed. Farron twisted his bayonet loose and slashed wide, opening up a throat and spraying himself with black blood, and then stabbed again towards an unprotected chest, though this time his strike was off-centre and it impaled through the thick meat of the ork's forearm. The greenskin laughed and flexed its arm, snapping the bayonet in two, and then swung its axe at Farron's throat.

But before that could happen the laspistol the Captain had drawn shot it in the face, and it pitched over backwards. Before its considerable weight hit the floor he blazed one way with his lasgun and his laspistol in the other, dropping two more. Then there was a low beep and his lasgun began to cough inert gas, its cell exhausted.

When the Ork assault party had suddenly charged at them from out of the habs, nearly a third of Farron's party had been cut to pieces before they could fix their bayonets or even turn to address the sudden attack. But the remainder had acted fast enough and subsequently driven the Orks back, and then pursued them through onto another observation balcony where the greenskins thronged as C Company reinforcements poured in from behind the Captain. Drake's heavy weapon section remained in their overwatch position, tearing through Ork bodies and solid walls with their enfilading fire.

"Into them, into them!" Farron was crying at the men around him, tossing his lasgun away and drawing his sabre in the other. He slashed wide and lopped off an Ork's hand at the wrist, then swung back and cleaved off the top of its skull. On either side his squad rushed in, firing from the hip or driving their bayonets into flesh and muscle, often firing to dislodge a corpse from their blades. A few of them fell as the Orks hacked or bludgeoned back, roaring in fury.

Somewhere to Farron's left, Sergeant Leech fired off a breeching round from his shotgun and punched an Ork backwards off of its feet while another of his squad blazed away with a melta, turning another mob of the creatures to molten slag. Farron ducked and rolled as a Nob swung at him with its huge choppa, and he hacked wide as he came up, severing its hamstrings. As it dropped to its knees, howling, he punched the spike of the blade through the beast's neck from behind, then pulled it free and lopped off its head to confirm the kill. Somewhere above them, the autocannons blazed away, punching through a couple of hab walls and cutting down a few more Orks into the bargain.

"Forwards, forwards!" cried Farron as he noticed the Orks beginning to drop back again, half of their number slain. "Pride of Northam, forwards!" he cried, his sabre held high. He ran after the greenskins, firing his laspistol one handed. Somewhere down on the colonnade, he could see the Orks down there fleeing, as the Bolian armour came upon them. Even the Ork armour at the head of the stairs was starting to pull back.

And then it wasn't. Farron saw the turrets of the battlewagons traversing as quickly as they could manage to assess some unseen threat, but then one of them took a direct hit from a high explosive ordinance and came apart in a conflagration so violent its turrets lifted up into the air, riding flame, and came down heavily. A ragged cheer went up from the Imperials.

"Was that...?" asked Sergeant Kane, as some of his squad rushed to the edge of the balcony to see what was going on.

At the far end, past the Ork armour, they could see a half dozen Leman Russ tanks in the grey livery of the Northam regiments, in stationary positions as they began to throw out shells into the thronging of Ork bodies they could see. Main cannons salughtered dozens of bodies at once, while the sponson and front-mounted heavy bolters and lascannons cut down those who weren't blown apart of vaporised. There was an Executioner plasma tank out there, and its weapon lanced fat bolts of blue energy into the horde, cremating dozens of them with each shot.

There was another cheer from the Northam soldiers, and even Captain Farron found himself smirking despite the situation. Then he stepped away from the edge of the balcony and yelled at his men to push on, to press the advantage, as the Northam armour annihilated another battlewagon and a looted Leman Russ in short order. The milling Orks were harvested with bursts of sponson weapons.

"Come on – press forward!" Farron was shouting, and his men advanced on, spilling out onto the main roadway in and around the Bolian armour and soldiers who pushed right up to hammer the advantage home. The Northam armour fired another devastating salvo, and the last remaining looted tanks and battlewagons went up in flaming conglaerations. A standard Leman Russ lowered its dozer blade and smashed through a line of Orks, scattering or crushing Orks indiscriminately.

Farron saw a long-barrelled Vanquisher turn side-on to him suddenly, and he saw the numerous kill tally marks in white along its flank, along with the name _Surgical Strike,_ in huge stencilled letters. He knew exactly who was commanding that vehicle from the name alone, and was immediately calling for the vox horn.

"Major?" he asked into the mouth piece.

"Lucan?" answered the voice of Major Fabien Cadogus, commanding officer of the 36th Armoured Brigade of Northam Pride. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the clanking of machinery and the voices of his fellow crew from inside of the tank. "I trust you are well?"

"I am now you're here, you brazen bastard you," laughed the Captain, and the Northam tanks turned in unison to present a united front against the enemy, and then they began to creep forwards, crushing all before them. "Thanks for the assistance though, even if you took your sweet time."

"Well unlike you Lucan, me and my boys have to earn our keep," Cadogus replied smartly. "We junked some Ork armour on the plains, and a couple of Stompas."

"Stompas?" asked Farron.

"Yes, just a couple, but still – keep your eyes peeled," the Major advised. "We'll push the rabble back and hold for further orders."

"Okay, copy that," Farron answered, and then opened the link to the general vox. "C Company, push forwards, drive them back – double time! Same goes to you, D Company!"

"Acknowledged," responded Captain Jenson of D Company. "Race you there, Lucan. First there buys the drinks for the other, and his entire command squad."

"You know I'll always win," chuckled Farron, cutting the link and taking up his sabre once more. "Pride of Northam! _With me!_ " His shout was taken up by the men surrounding him, and they began to surge forwards behind the armour, laying waste to the Orks which had so far escaped the fury of the Northam's 36th Armoured Brigade.

* * *

Miles behind all of this chaos, the 19th's H and I Companies were fighting their own battle against a separate contingent of Orks who were striking at the field hospital which had been erected in the hours following planetfall. The medicae staff of three separate regiments attended to the wounded of their own regiments as well as countless Bolian PDF soldiers who had been left severely wounded in the ongoing battle.

Though H and I were technically reserve battalions (each of them was only at half the strength of the main battalions), the men that formed each Company were as well-drilled and professional as any average Northam guardsman, and upon being charged with defence of the field hospital, three hundred men had got to work digging slit trenches and laying down tank traps and razor wire to provide a solid line of defence, and then hunkered down to prepare for the enemy's approach. Captain Corvo of H Company was charged with command of the defence, and as a keen scholar of Imperial military history and strategy, he knew best how to play the defence.

Squads of Guardsman picked their targets when they got the opportunity, supported by squads of heavy weapon teams who were placed so as to provide a wide cone of fire against encroaching Ork mobs, and as a result the autocannons and missile launchers reaped a terrible toll. When the Orks then changed to harrying the defence lines from their trucks and war buggies, the Northam soldiers held their nerve as the vehicles swung past, laying down heavy fire. On a second pass by, missile launchers and lascannons which had been sighted in on the vehicle's first pass promptly destroyed the vehicles. Soon enough the smouldering fields before the defence lines was littered with the wrecks of at least three dozen Ork vehicles. The smoke wafted across the plains, obscuring their view of the battlefield as row upon row of Ork reinforcements surged in, screaming their war cries.

"Yes, I hear you," deadpanned Lieutenant Prentiss, shooting a charging greenskin through its open, roaring mouth. Then he switched aim and fired several more shots, sending two more spinning wildly off of their feet. The others returned fire, tracer fire spitting in and striking the ground in front of their trenches, throwing up small puffs of dust and dirt. A man to Prentiss' right took a direct hit to the face and his head popped like a ripe cherry, his helmet bouncing away across the dirt. The men on either side flinched in shock, faces white.

" _Stay down!"_ roared a powerful voice, and the men looked back over their shoulders to see a figure coming into view, wearing the peaked cap and black leather stormcoat of an Imperial Commisar. The jacket he wore beneath was decorated with golden epaulettes and red silk lining. His face was impassive as he walked behind the line of troops, heedless of the light arms fire which sailed past. His blue eyes fixed those who looked back at him with blazing intensity.

"You are of no use to the God-Emperor if you lose your head!" the Commisar continued, reaching the end of the Northam line and stopping on the spot, doing a quick about face and resuming his march. "There is still much work to be done on this day, sons of Northam! Your oldest enemy masses upon this world, to tear down its foundations, and will you suffer this transgression?!"

" _No!"_ they all howled as one, even the officers.

"Will you allow the old enemy to prevail – on this world or any other?!"

" _No!"_

"No you will not!" he roared, drawing his bolt pistol now and holding it aloft. The black weapon casing was decorated with the Imperial Aquila in gold gilt. "Because you are sons of Northam Prime! You rely upon your steel!"

" _With which we face adversity!"_ the men chorused, reciting their regimental motto.

"...you rely upon your fury!"

" _With which we cut down the enemies of mankind!"_

"...and most of all, you rely upon your Pride!"

" _With which we honour our service to the Emperor!"_ the men chorused with all of the air they had in their lungs, and then broke off onto raucous cries as they resumed sheeting fire into the approaching Orks. Dozens of the beasts were felled in short manner. A buggy armed with a skorcha flame-thrower was touched off and erupted into a massive fireball.

 _That's it_ , smiled Commisar Willem Dorn to himself, as he sighted his bolt pistol and snapped off a couple of shots. One Ork was smashed back off of its feet, and a second took a glancing hit and was spun around, trailing blood from its ruptured stomach.

Dorn noted the ochre-armoured Guardsmen who flanked the Northam line on both sides. Unlike the Northam, their trenches and defensive positions were not as well-constructed, and they didn't have as many support or heavy weapons to call upon. He noted how terrified most of them looked as they loosed off shots towards the Orks, and they would have fled were it not for the Commisars who lurked behind them, pistols drawn.

They were Thrassan Guard, though the term 'Guard' was used in purely the loosest term. Residents of the heavily populated hive world Thrassus, the vast majority of the soldiers in the Thrassan regiments were conscripts indentured into service from all walks of life, and the only way they could earn a proper field rank was to survive their first battle. But as they were all terrified youngsters who were likely to break and flee in the face of a full Ork assault...more Commisars were needed. Already at least a dozen of the Thrassan's had been executed to maintain morale in the last hour alone. They were holding, but only just. And if they broke and fled, the Northam men would be left on their own.

"Stand firm, sons of Northam!" he cried, firing his pistol again. "Stand firm! Deny these filthy brutes!"

"What the Commisar said!" cried Lieutenant Cox, reloading his lasgun and taking up the firing once again. "Those wounded are relying upon us to keep them safe!"

But then there was a lull in the assault. It was subtle, but the Northam platoon commanders picked up on it. The Orks who had been lingering at the edge of the dust cloud cover slackened off their weapon fire slightly, and pulled away from the central approach, far enough for a vehicle to pass through perhaps. Captain Corvo saw this and snatched up his vox-horn, transmitting to the assembled men. "Stay sharp boys – they've got a trick up their sleeve"-

He'd just finished when there was a chorus of engine noise, and then three Ork trucks came rushing towards the centre of their positions. They were larger and more heavily armoured than the previous examples, sheets of steel riveted across their cabins and sides. Black smoke belched out of their engines.

"Support weapons, target the trucks! Wreck them!" Captain Corvo yelled into his vox horn, even as the lasguns of H and I Companies started to sheet fire back at the vehicles, though the vast majority of it was deflected by the armoured plates. Then the autocannons started to fire, bracketing the vehicles with tracer fire. The heavy shells warped and distorted the steel plating but most of it still held fast.

But then one of the salvos caught a weak point and the plates on the left-most truck suddenly came apart, the vehicle's front axle snapped in two, and its cab smashed down into the dusty soil, up-ending the truck and leaving it suspended in mid-air. Then a missile caught it dead on and the entire thing erupted into a massive fireball which rocked the remaining trucks and sent most of the Northam and Thrassan Guardsmen ducking for cover from intense heat wash. Commisar Dorn remained standing, squinting against the heat.

Corvo noted how the explosion seemed oddly for a vehicle of its size and fuel capacity. The only way you could get an explosion of that magnitude was if it had a considerable amount of promethium aboard, or some high explosives had been touched off by the blast-

 _Oh no..._

" _All units, focus fire! Bring them down!"_ Corvo was screaming into the vox horn, and then he was taking up his lasgun and firing full auto at the remaining trucks, the others following suit. He should have seen it coming sooner – they'd held the Orks off for over two hours now, so it seemed inevitable they would have pulled a trick like this to break open the defences. So many Imperial commanders failed to give Ork's cunning the proper respect.

The middle truck blew out as a lascannon targeted its engine and the machine slewed to a halt and began to skid sideways, and then more autocannon fire riddled its flank and the vehicle erupted into another immense fireball like the first one had. The blowback rocked the last remaining truck a little and it slewed around, but otherwise remained on its current course. There was no way for the Northam to stop it in time. It was close enough for them to see the jeering Ork at the wheel.

"Oh God-Emperor"- was all Corvo managed to blurt.

Then the explosives on the back of the truck detonated, and an immense burst of fire and shrapnel obliterated the tank traps, razor wire and thirty feet of hard-packed soil in every direction, sending a geyser of liquefied mud straight up into the sky. Also vaporised in the midst of the blast were Corvo and thirty seven of his fellow Northam soldiers.


	3. 3: Pride of Northam

**Chapter 3: Pride of Northam**

' _Now is our time, sons of Northam! Cast down our enemy and do your duty for the Emperor's glory!'_ _ **–Commisar Willem Dorn, 19**_ _ **th**_ _ **Northam Guard Regiment, at the Sack of Moon Port**_

Manufactorum Delta-13 resembled a drastically expanded version of the smaller worksheds on the planet. There were a hundred more like it scattered throughout the main cities of the planet, each one churning out weapons, fighting vehicles and fortifications for the Imperial Guard at the rate of thousands a day – this one in particular produced the chassis for the standard Leman Russ tank, as well as its basic battle cannon mount. The walls stretched up into the sky, almost resembling one of the great fortress cities back on Northam Prime, its flank punctuated by several sets of huge warehouse doors, fifty feet tall and twice as wide, opening into a cavernous darkness. The cog icon of the Adeptus Mechanicus decorated the walls, some of the plating scorched black.

Orks were pouring out of the opened warehouse doors, a horde at least twice as large as the ones that A and B Company had previously routed on the main approach. They surged down the loading ramps at each pair of doors, screaming their signature warcry as they came out to meet the interlopers who looked to eject them from the great work space. Nova spread his troops out to meet the green swarm, many squads taking up firing positions amongst ruined buildings or behind wrecked vehicles, but the vast majority rushed to meet the Ork's charge with a counter move of their own. Behind the mass of blue-armoured troops, the Northam armour churned into the open square and fanned out to support the infantry. Already the main cannons were firing, sending fountains of flame, soil, and decimated bodies into the air. Further armoured reinforcements were joining too, including a squadron of Wyvern tanks and their stormshard mortars.

" _Into them!"_ Dolan cried to the men surrounding him as he met another Nob head-on. The brute tried to snip him in half with its power claw, but the Major was anticipating such a move and he just smashed his power glove into its stomach to double it over, and then slammed it down into the dirt with a downwards swing. Then he was sweeping his bolt pistol around and firing, blowing a few more apart. He fired until his pistol clicked on empty, then finished the Nob with a stomp to its neck, feeling the click of bones beneath his boot heel.

Nova fired his plasma pistol with a two-handed grip, scything bolts of blue fire through the front ranks of the Orks before the two sides collided. Then he was drawing his sword in his right hand and bursting through their ranks, hacking and slashing, a determined flash of blue light that severed arms, legs and heads. All around him bayonets flashed and stabbed, bodies falling from both sides. Squads pushed forwards through and over the dead, taking ground one meter at a time while others hung back, offering fire support.

" _Be advised, friendlies at your nine o' clock."_

The voice crackled through the general channel and was quickly relayed from vox officers down through the ranks. They looked to their nine o' clock position in time to see several Chimera carriers painted in drab mustard primer emerge onto the square from alleys and roads. They slewed to a halt and then their rear hatches banged open, disgorging troopers in the same mustard colour. They surged down into the side of the Ork horde, firing from the hip. The flank of each Chimera and the trooper's shoulder plates were marked with a white 78 stencil.

The Pardus Mechanised 78th had arrived. At least the Northam wouldn't be going in there completely unsupported.

"Kilo," Nova called out, and his vox officer came close. "Get word to the Pardus command – tell them we have to get inside that manufactorum and push the Orks out, sooner rather than later. We can push in this way easily enough, but I'm afraid of leaving the other Companies stranded, and make sure they damn well know that!" Kilo nodded, and turned away to fiddle with his set.

He'd just about turned back when a Nob wielding a huge chainsword came straight at him. He bought the sword up just in time to block it, but the force of the impact stung his arm and rocked him back a few steps, giving the Ork time to advance and swing again, aiming for the same spot as it had done the first time. Next thing he knew, Nova was being pushed back, pursued by a flurry of left and right swings that could have easily taken his head off.

His blood up, his clenched his jaw and planted his feet, catching the next swing with the flat of his blade and turning the Ork's clumsy attack away. The brute let out a confused squeal as it stumbled, and then Nova's next strike sliced straight up through its extended arm and neck.

"Colonel! C Company's on the line!" Kilo then called suddenly, almost in Nova's ear.

"Tell him I'm busy!" Nova snapped impatiently, decapitating another charging greenskin.

"He says it's urgent!" Kilo shouted back, before quickly adding, "sir." Nova let out an annoyed growl as he deflected another attack and then fired his plasma pistol a couple times before he dropped back from the scrum to approach Kilo. "Take my place in that case, trooper." Kilo just nodded and scooped up his lasgun and turned to take the Colonel's place in the line, firing bursts of fire down into the green tide.

"This is A!" Nova yelled into the horn, over the din.

"A, this is C," chimed Lucan Farron's voice over the link. "We're almost at the objective, but Throne the Orks have a lot of battlewagons down this end. The armour's clearing us a path, but it's going to take us some time."

"Perfect," muttered Nova, not speaking that into the vox horn. He glanced over his shoulder as the line of blue-armoured soldiers stood their ground, the odd one taking a serious hit and going down in a tangle of limbs and uniform webbing. If this kept up for too long they would all be dead by dusk.

"Fine, just do your best Lucan," Nova sighed. "We'll smash these bastards one way or another. The Emperor Protects."

"The Emperor Protects."

The link was cut just as Kilo took a hit to his face and flew backwards in a horrific spurt of blood and shattered teeth that sprayed across the Colonel's face and shoulder. He turned his head away instinctively, but the damage was already done to Kilo. Mercifully, the poor bastard was already out cold when he landed on his back beside Nova, his helmet still in place even with one of the helmet straps nearly shorn clean off.

"Man down!" he screamed, grabbing a medical dressing from his webbing and clamping it across Kilo's ruptured face, even as it was soaked red and then corpsmen were there, attending to the poor lad.

"Get him out of here," Nova growled, his face by then saturated with Kilo's blood. Then he was turning away, snatching up his plasma pistol and firing once more. Orks fell as they were cremated in short order, missing heads, necks and torsos. Then he had his sword out and was slicing another greenskin into two distinct pieces, and sweeping the blade back to knock another attack away. The battle rage was burning even brighter now, brighter than the firebrand of his blade.

* * *

At the eastern edge of the manufactorum, the end wall of the great structure consisted of a massive pair of doors which had been left wide open, and out of the gap were pouring huge numbers of greenskins, accompanied by mobs of dreadnoughts and killa kans that lumbered down amongst the green throng. And then towering above it all was a Stompa – a full thirty feet tall, painted bright yellow and heavily armoured, one arm mount and its shoulders bristling with all manner of weapons. It just stood in the centre of the open doors, like some ancient sentinel standing guard, laying waste to all before it as munitions exploded off of its armoured front.

Yendil lead E Company out into the plaza in front of the entrance, at the hells of a vast force of Guardsmen from the Bolian PDF and three other regiments, including the Steel Legion and Pardus Mechanised 99th. Most of them were already engaged in a ferocious melee with the Ork's while what remained of their armoured support skirted the edges of the plaza, engaged in a duel with the Ork armour and the Stompa, which had already wrecked at least a dozen Leman Russ's and several Chimeras in short order. Judging by the vox traffic, Farron and Jenson were bogged down by Ork armour, so he would have to do this on his own to begin with.

"Spread out! Give them support!" Yendil barked to his platoon leaders, the squads fanning out to either sheet cover fire over the heads of their fellow Guardsmen, or rushing into the combat itself to give more immediate support. Lexanus was one of the platoon leaders right at the front of things, sweeping his sabre into necks and ribs. He seemed to be enjoying himself, laughing as he put his blade through the ribs of an Ork and then shot its head off with a point-blank pistol shot.

For his part, Yendil shouldered his way towards the centre of the Steel Legion position, past rows of Guardsmen in their sandy greatcoats and rebreathers with long trailing hoses, until he came to a taller one who was standing in the centre of a huddle of command staff, speaking into a vox speaker horn. He turned at Yendil's approach, and the Captain saw the colonel's pins on his shoulder's as he came up and made a quick Aquilla across his chest. Yendil mirrored the sign, and then snapped to salute.

"Captain Yendil, E Company, 19th Northam Guard."

"Colonel Black, 299th Steel Legion," the Colonel answered, his voice muffled by his rebreather mask. Were it not for the rank pins he would have resembled one of his troopers, though the face plate of his mask had been fashioned into a grinning skull, and he was a good few inches taller as well.

"How can I help you, Captain? Because right now I'm a little busy trying to deal with that infernal beast," he added, pointing towards the imposing Stompa. Its Deff Kannon roared and another platoon of Steel Legion was reduced to a smoking crater in the ground.

"My C.O is bringing two companies in through the south entrance of the manufactorum," Yendil replied, "and another two companies are coming up behind in support, and they have armour with them."

"That's good to hear, but like I've said unless we do something about that damned machine soon there won't be many of us left." Both of them ducked down as a stream of a tracer fire from the Stompa's Super-Gattla raked the Guard lines. Men were hit and exploded into clouds of pink mist. "At this rate we'll all be dead in minutes!"

"Understood Colonel!" Yendil shouted over the din of men screaming for aid or medics, and Yendil crouch-ran back to his command squad, and grabbed for the vox horn from his signals officer. "This is E, calling A.S. 4. Repeat, this is E, calling A.S. 4 – do you read me?" There was the crackle of interference, and then a voice came back, a little indistinct but relatively clear.

"This is A.S. 4, reading you E."

"Excellent, what's your current position, over?"

A.S 4 reeled off a long sequence of numbers and letters, and a quick check of the operational map of the area around the Manufactorum confirmed that they were not far off of the south-east corner – in the Stompa's current blind spot.

"A.S. 4, I need you to come round to the east side of the objective. There's an Ork Stompa giving us some grief and we can't get inside until it's junked," Yendil explained. "You up for marking a high value target?"

The voice laughed. "Always Captain. What else are we looking at?" Yendil explained the relative strengths of the Ork infantry and the other dreadnoughts and killa kan mobs. He could hear the subtle scratch of a stylus on a data slate as A.S. 4 leader made notes.

"All received and acknowledged E. Stand by," he then added, and the link was cut.

Yendil turned to face the rest of his company, looking round at the platoon and squad leaders. "Okay boys, A.S. 4 are en-route to help us with the Stompa, but until then we still got plenty of those green-skinned bastards to put down, so let's look busy. Pride of Northam!"

" _Pride of Northam!"_ they all chorused, and then got to work, as Yendil made his plan clear to Colonel Black and the Pardus command section via his vox officer. Heavy weapon squads set up upon the ridge-line, sheeting fire down into the thronging Orks or targeting the dreadnoughts and killa kans, destroying several in quick succession. Missiles and lascannon fire targeted the Stompa, scorching its surface armour but otherwise doing little to slow its slaughter of the Guard units facing it.

"Anytime," Yendil whispered to himself, before he opened the vox again and resumed barking commands.

* * *

The first thing that Topher Abel was aware of was the ringing in his ears, and over time it faded away, replaced swiftly by the screaming of wounded men, shouts for corpsmen, demands for immediate aid, and the all-too familiar warcry of the Ork horde. The Captain of I Company blinked a few times, and then promptly wiped away the liquid mud and blood in his eyes with the back of his glove. He stared up at the grey sky, listening to the screaming a little more. Some of the voices had faded.

" _Captain!"_

He groaned a little as a trooper he didn't recognise grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him onto his feet. It took him a few seconds to find his feet, and then someone else shoved his lasgun into his arms. Abel shook his head a few times.

"Someone give me a report," he asked, the mundane nature of the question stark in the midst of the ferocious firefight going on. He glanced around at the ruined fortifications and the shredded bodyparts surrounding him and realised how stupid that question suddenly seemed.

"Captain Corvo's been fragged!" the one on his left shrieked, his voice breaking. "They drove a truck loaded with damned explosives into the line, blew right through us!"

"I saw, trooper," Abel replied bluntly, reaching up and tightening his helmet straps, absent-mindedly. The only reason why Abel and most of his company hadn't been killed in the blast was because they were on the edge of the blast radius, the shockwave only knocking him down into the mud, but several more of his men hadn't been as lucky. He could see some bodies, missing limbs and jetting blood, being dragged back towards the field hospital.

"The Thrassians have left us! They just left us!" shouted the man to his right, his helmet and lasgun gone, his eyes wide and terrified. "They just fragging left us!"

Abel glanced around. Even through the smoke and drizzle of mud that continued to fall, he couldn't see any of the ochre-armoured Guardsmen or their Commisars who had been at the defence line with them. They had simply vanished into thin air, leaving the Northam to a potentially deadly fate.

"Get me a vox officer," Abel ordered, his professionalism returning as he realised with Corvo dead he suddenly had nominal command of the defence. "Get all of the platoon officers together"-

The trooper to Abel's right suddenly took a serious hit to his sternum and his entire upper body just erupted into a bloody mess that drenched the Captain and the other trooper from head to toe, and then as his legs collapsed onto the floor they looked up to see heavy tracer fire starting to stab at them from out of the dust, and the rough outlines of Orks beginning to form.

"Shit! Return fire! Return fire!" he was screaming suddenly, sighting down his lasgun's scope and firing at the shapes. Two of them went over, and then a third joined them as the trooper joined in. Abel fired a few more times and then grabbed for his micro-bead, still firing his weapon one-handed.

"All units! Form up, make a line! Now, damn it!" he screamed into the ether, and then resumed firing two-handed. He could heard replies singing back in his ear and then he could see Guardsmen appearing out of the haze, taking up positions, adopting the classic twin ranks of a Northam firing line. Heavy weapons were abandoned to add all available bodies to the line.

"Fire at will!" he then screamed, and the return fire rate began to increase exponentially, assault weapons joining in. Liquid fire squirted from flamer nozzles as the relevant troopers pushed through to the front. He was thankful the men showed little concern for the sudden turnaround in events as they put up a significant resistance even if there were only about two hundred of them left from the original three hundred.

 _I'm going to strangle the damned Thrassian commander,_ he thought to himself _._

But there were a lot more Orks out there than Northam soldiers, evident by the sheer amount of fire stabbing out at them, and the raised, combined voices of hundreds of greenskinned brutes. The dust and smoke subsided somewhat, and then they could see the ranks of brutes rushing at them, relishing the coming combat.

"Stand firm, Sons of Northam!" Abel shouted as loud as he could manage. Which wasn't as loud as he initially thought, the dust clogging his throat. It came out all rather half-heartedly, which was exactly what he didn't need. He coughed and tried to manage a louder shout, but he hacked in his throat and it didn't come.

" _Stand firm, Sons of Northam!"_

The new voice was twice as powerful as Abel's own, and he swung his head around in time to see Commisar Dorn striding through to the back of the Northam lines. His cap was gone and his storm coat was torn in several places, but otherwise he was still in one piece. There was a look of indescribable fury in his face.

"I would expect such a trick of these savages!" the Commisar continued, raising his bolt pistol and racking the slide loud enough for them all to hear. "But we are more civilized than that, are we not?! So let us give them a taste of how _we_ wage our wars, shall we?!" he asked the men rhetorically, and then went on, walking back and forth behind the line.

"Sons of Northam! You have trained and prepared for moments such as this! You have survived war in all its forms, and you will continue to do so for years to come! I have the absolute faith in you all! The Emperor has absolute faith in all of you! Do not disappoint him, and definitely do not disappoint me! I am not as forgiving as He is!"

They all howled their appreciation, and began to fire at a much more ferocious rate. Dorn looked satisfied and began to add his own weapon fire into the salvo. At the same time, Abel had cleared his clogged throat and saw the peaked Commisar's cap in the dirt beside his feet. He scooped it up quickly and dusted it down.

"Commisar?" he asked as he came up beside Dorn, and the stony-faced discipline officer turned, and then graciously accepted it, settling it on his shaved scalp brim-first. Then he raised his bolt pistol again and resumed where he had left off as though the small conversation had happened, allowing Abel to walk back along the lines, shouting further encouragement to the men.

"Do you remember Moon Port?!" he asked them all rhetorically. "Standing upon those walls with the fury of an entire planet bearing down upon us, and we did we shirk our duty then? No! And we shall not shirk our duty here either! Stand firm, children of Northam! Lay waste to these heathens that defile this blessed world!" They roared their approval and fired another lethal volley of las-fire, as the Captain grabbed the shoulder of the nearest signals officer.

"Put out a call to Captain Wilder. Protocol Gamme-Phi. Now!" he barked, and the man turned away and pulled out his vox caster, turning and twisting the dials before issuing the relevant message. Then Abel was turning back and pushing through to the front of his company, just as a warning was being yelled.

"Here they come! They're assaulting!" cried one of the Lieutenants.

"Fix bayonets!" yelled Abel, and they all followed suit, reaching down for the warknives, spinning them around and fixing them onto the bayonet lugs under the barrel of each lasgun, and then resumed their firing. Out of the dust cloud, the first Ork assaulters were starting to rush forwards in a strung-out fashion. Abel sighted his lasgun and fired off a tight burst of shots, dropping the first two greenskins.

Commisar Dorn stepped out to meet the rest of them head-on. None of the men tried to stop him, after seeing the look in his eyes.

" _Savages!"_ he roared, drawing his ancient chainsword, _Impavidus,_ and cycled it, and it squealed in anticipation of the fight to come. He parried the attack of the first incoming Ork and sliced his weapon across its throat, spraying himself in dark blood, and then cleaved the second one open from chest to naval with an up-down motion, and then dropped a third with the backswing from the second attack, taking off its head. The skull went bouncing away across the packed soil.

" _Defilers!"_ he shouted next, firing his bolt pistol at the other charging brutes, knocking three of them off of their feet so hard as though they'd been yanked on a chain. Las shots passed by on either side of him, cutting down more of the savages, but he paid them no heed as a Nob came lumbering right at him.

It was raising a huge axe to strike just as Dorn raised his bolt pistol and shot out its legs with a bolt to each knee in turn. As it flopped down onto its shattered knees, bellowing, Dorn stepped forwards and planted his chainsword into the side of its neck, and then jammed it straight through to the bone. There was a tearing of flesh and the spray of blood, and then the smell of burnt bone as the saw teeth chewed into vertebrae. He ripped the weapon free and it just keeled over sideways.

And then Captain Abel was grabbing the Commisar by the shoulder and pulling him back towards the relative safety of the Northam line. "Commisar Dorn, you are of no use to the Emperor if you get killed fighting the entire Ork army single-handedly and not urging the rest of us on to greatness!" Dorn just gave Abel a rather strict look, and then he just barked out a laugh as he took up position just beside the Captain.

"Stand ready!" Dorn bellowed, raising his bolt pistol again. "The Emperor stands at your side always, no matter the odds! Have faith, and look to the man at either side to help you face adversity. Now deny them, in the name of the Emperor!"

They didn't get a chance to reply to that, because in the next few seconds the Orks were on them.

* * *

 _Well this is lovely._

Farron and Jenson were meant to have pushed through to join E Company in punching through the Ork defences at the east end of the manufactorum, but the Orks had apparently bought in a sizeable batch of reinforcements behind the armoured spearhead which they had pushed back from the Justine Hab-blocks, a force close to Warband size almost. In the communal square of the Geist Hab-blocks a trio of battlewagons with their massive spiked rollers lowered crunched forwards, followed and flanked by a tide of green muscle.

He'd pulled the platoons back after Sergeant Leech and his squad had been reduced to a red, mushy paste in seconds when they attempted to get close enough to hit one of the wagons with a meltagun. That loss hurt Farron personally. Leech had been his adjutant back when Farron had been Lieutenant, before that the two of them having lived on the same hab-block in Flynn's Respite back on Northam Prime. All that way, all that fighting – to be crushed to death under the roller of an Ork vehicle on some Forge World they had never been to before.

So he was taking his anger out on the Orks instead, as he barked commands into his micro-bead, relayed by his signals officer, cracking off shots with his laspistol when he could. Many of those commands were directed to the armoured elements lead by Major Cadogus, as they skirted the edge of the square, looking for a suitable target.

"I need those wagons junked _now_ , Fabien!" he was yelling, almost at the top of his lungs as he frantically lopped the head off of another Ork boy. The infantry were being pushed back further and further, and at this rate they would miss out on the battle entirely.

"Working on it, Lucan," Cadogus responded calmly over the clanking of his tank interior. "We need to find a weak spot."

Inside of the cramped, sweltering confines of his Leman Russ Vanquisher _Surgical Strike,_ Cadogus peered through his view finder with his right eye, his left eye screwed shut. He saw the green glow of the auspex screen, and the white flashes of the Ork battlewagons as their main weapons fired, and the smaller flashes of the lighter weapons too. He fixed the crosshairs above the roller of the central wagon and made a mental note of the coordinates. His sharp eyes had noticed a weak join in the steel plating.

"Lay on," he ordered suddenly, and below he heard his layer preparing a fresh shell for the battlecannon. "Aim on my coordinates...there. Just above the front left corner of its tracks. Right on the join."

"Aye!" shouted his gunner, swinging the turret around. "Target locked!" Cadogus took his eyes away from the auspex unit so as not to be hit from the sudden motion following the cannon's recoil.

"Kill it."

There was a massive roar and the Vanquisher cannon fired with a flare of white light. The shell punched through the corner of the battlewagon's steel plating just above the front of its left track unit. The vehicle rocked, and then it suddenly exploded in a massive conflagration as the shell touched off the wagon's fuel supply. The two wagons on either side rocked boldly from the shockwave and came to a halt. The Northam infantry cheered wildly.

"...a weak spot like that," Cadogus said into his vox link to Farron, almost as though their conversation had never been interrupted to begin with. "Gentlemen, the next move if yours. We'll let you worry about the rabble."

"How kind of you," chuckled Farron, and switched his vox to the general channel. "Pride of Northam! Forwards!"

There was a renewed shout from the men surrounding him and they surged forwards, no longer on the back foot. Above them on the right side, the support and heavy weapons of D Company wasted no time in laying down a carpet of fire into the milling Orks who had been advancing behind the wrecked wagon. Dozens fell, and then the missile launchers bombarded the right-hand wagon and blew it apart, before another of the Leman Russ tanks crippled the last wagon with a shot that caved in most of its front axle and left it listing slightly. By then the men of C Company were advancing at double time through the burning wreckage, snapping off the odd shot at the retreating Orks. The wounded greenskins that they came to were dispatched with a shot or bayonet to the head.

They picked their way through the remains of a children's park, though thankfully there was no sign of any dead children. The briefing said that most of the civilian population had been evacuated out of the major cities within hours of the invasion, which was just as well because it seemed as though the 19th had levelled half of the city to get this far. Classic Imperial Guard strategum – flatten overwhelming odds with even more overwhelming odds.

Cadogus drove his armour up along the edge of the square, their sponson and pintle weapons tearing through the new Ork mobs that were rushing in to meet the Northam advance. His vehicle shuddered again as another shell went through the front facade of an occupied hab block and four floors of rockcrete and plasteel collapsed in on itself, throwing out another cloud of dust. Luckily the auspex scan could see through the dust, showing up the Orks and their vehicles as winks of white light through a green haze.

"Lay on and fire at will!" he commanded into his vox link, before he painted another idling battlewagon with a quick flick of his control stick. He heard the clunk of a heavy shell being loaded and the shout of 'Ready!' from his loader, and then his gunner roared 'Firing!' and the vehicle lurched once more, and the battlewagon shuddered and began to burn. Already he was swivelling the view finder again, seeking a new target, trusting his subordinates to seal the deal.

He cycled it to the left and was nearly blinded by a flash of white that was akin to staring directly at a sun. He pulled back from the visor, just as he remembered that the Executioner tank, _Solar Wrath,_ was on that side, the discharge from its massive plasma cannon leaving a great flash of light on their auspex display. The ancient vehicle trundled up the left side of the avenue and began to turn its treads to advance around the corner which would take them to the manufactorum directly. It fired again, cremating another dozen Orks which had been emerging from the front of what used to be a communal canteen. The blast also destroyed a few support pillars and it started to collapse in on itself.

The infantry came behind the tanks, using them as mobile points of cover as light arms fire pinged off of the thick hulls. Farron was ducked down behind the _Surgical Strike_ as it fired again, the massive recoil making the tank shudder. He ducked down, and then resumed his crouch-walk after it, snapping off a few laspistol shots as he went. His men blazed left and right as they followed, pulling in tight behind each hull.

"Keep up the pace, Fabien," Farron called into his micro-bead. "We need to make up for plenty of lost time!"

"As you wish Lucan," Cadogus answered, laughing a little. Then his mount fired again and the vehicle rocked once more, and then continued on its course. "Auspex readings say a lot of soft targets between here and there."

"We're less than half a kilometre out," suddenly advised Farron's adjutant. "We could be there in under eight minutes."

"Okay," nodded Farron. "Get the signals officer, send word on. I want the others to know that we're coming in hot and heavy." The adjutant nodded and turned away to fetch the vox man, as the others kept on.

Farron smiled, glad that the rules of the galaxy finally seemed to be in their favour now.

* * *

The Ork resistance at the south end of the manufactorum seemed to collapse in an instant when Nova slew the Warboss commanding the defence. Emboldened by the news that Farron and Jenson were bringing their companies in from the east, he had driven A Company through the mobs of boyz in front of them and rushed up the loading ramp to clash with the Warboss who had taken up residence at the top of the ramp, surrounded by his retinue of Nobz. He was a massive brute even by his kind's standards, nearly nine feet tall and at least four hundred pounds of dark green, scarred flesh and slabs of sheer muscle, wearing crude steel armour and clutching a huge, two-handed choppa with a chainsaw edge.

"Yus!" it shouted in its rough tongue, "a worthy 'uman to cut!" It whirled its weapon once above its shoulders as a show of sheer brute strength, and then swung it at Nova's rapidly-approaching face, from the upper-left to lower right in a blow that would have likely eviscerated him in a single blow. It if had connected.

But it didn't. Nova stopped short and stamped down on the flat of the choppa with his bionic leg when it whistled through thin air, pinning it to the floor. He looked into its surprised face briefly and gave a little smirk, before he swept his power sword up, slicing halfway through its thick neck. He jerked the blade out and it staggered back, wheezing as it tried to breath through a rent windpipe. Its bodyguard rushed forward to assist but then the rest of A Company was crashing into the Ork line like a wrecking ball, pushing them back through sheer weight of numbers, with the Pardus infantry rushing in from the left flank. The wounded Warboss was just knocked down and trampled to death beneath dozens of boots from both sides.

In conclusion, it was probably the easiest Warboss he had ever slew in his career. The last one he had faced had taken his forearm and left him in a medically-induced coma for five days while this one seemed almost incompetent. It was the beast that lead this horde.

"Onwards!" Nova was yelling, hacking left and right into the greenskins, scattering others before him as he lanced plasma shots through the centre of their numbers. They were in the shadow of the great yawning gates into the manufactorum now, the walls towering above him like the rockcrete and adamantium walls of the great fortress cities back home on Northam Prime. Somewhere inside the cavernous space they could hear the chanting of even more savage Orks, getting themselves riled up for the coming fight.

" _Ere we go! Ere we go! Ere we go!"_ they were chanting over and over again.

"Archer!" yelled Nova and his adjutant was there in an instant, his chainsword dripping with fresh blood.

"Colonel!" the sergeant shouted, turning and deflecting another attack and then driving the chainsaw edge underneath the armoured chestplate of a Nob and sweeping it sideways, disembowelling the brute.

"Get a hold of a signals officer, someone who we can trust to stay calm under fire," Nova ordered, remembering poor Kilo and his ruptured face who had been carried off by the stretcher bearers minutes ago. "Tell them to send word to C and E companies – tell them that we're inside, pushing forwards. I'm going to find the monster driving this horde and slay it. I would prefer some assistance in doing so."

"Sir," nodded Archer, and then he was gone in the scrum of bodies. Nova hacked a few more Orks to death, and spun around, raising his weapon and his voice: the former to catch the attention of his troops, and the latter to be heard.

"Pride of Northam! Forwards! To the end!"

They roared in approval and then surged forwards, sweeping away the remaining gate defenders. Moments later they were inside, the Pardus infantry close on their heels.

* * *

" _There!"_

Yendil followed the outstretched hand of one of his sergeants to see half a dozen sentinel walkers appear from around the south-east corner of the manufactorum building, advancing boldly across ruined buildings and rubble with ease. They were all painted in one of the main colours of the Northam Guard – dull blue – and were armed for tank killing, half with lascannons and half with missile launchers outfitted with advanced targeting systems. They advanced down the slight slope before they came to a halt and then began to open fire, missiles falling amongst the crowd of Orks escorting the dreadnoughts and killa kans. The lascannons targeted the Stompa though, several of their high-density beams punching straight through the thing's thick armour and doing little damage, but one of them hit something semi-vital and a small explosion went off, tearing apart about ten square feet of armour plating and gusting flame out of the new opening. A few Grot Oilers fell from the hole, on fire.

On the side of each Sentinel was stencilled the crest of the Northam regiments, along with large lettering and numbering for A.S. 4 – Armoured Spearhead 4. Like many predominantly infantry-based regiments in the Imperial Guard, the Northam Guard often used Sentinel Walkers to either provide additional fire support for the infantry or to act as 'spotters' for the armoured and other support elements. The Northam models were of the armoured variant with a fully-enclosed crew compartment and generally bearing heavy weapons for either infantry support or tank hunting, as this particular squadron did.

"This is your grand plan, Captain?" cut in the curt voice of Colonel Black. "Half a dozen Sentinels against that monstrosity? They don't stand a chance Captain!"

"They're not looking to kill it, Colonel," Yendil replied calmly, "they're targeting it." The Stompa swivelled its considerable bulk around slowly to face the new threat, and amongst its feet the Ork weapon crews were doing the same. The Sentinels spread themselves out in a staggered line, but otherwise stood their ground and continued to fire. Explosions tore through the weapon crews, sending Grots running scared, or blossomed across the surface armour of the Stompa, tearing a couple of mounted weapons free.

But then it opened fire, and two Sentinels were torn apart in the resulting conflageration, but the remainder of the squadron just stood their ground and continued firing, a lascannon beam glancing off of the Stompa's 'face' and leaving a blackened gouge in the steel. Two more were targeted by the gun crews and wrecked just as totally. One of the remaining walkers circled a little more, seemingly doing little save for aiming its weapon at its colossal foe.

 _Come on, come on..._

And then there was a high-pitched shriek and the side of the Stompa's head was struck by a massive bolt of energy that set off a great explosion and tore apart the shoulder plating of its left shoulder and neck. The huge machine seemed to groan and protest and started to turn to face the source of this new annoyance, even as more munitions exploded against its front.

And then another energy blast struck it head-on, finding its considerable engine and fuel supplies. The top half of the structure was simply blown off, its mangled head lifting into the air riding on a crest of blazing flame and black smoke, while its lower half shudder in place, and then just began to keel over. Terrified Orks and Gretchin fled from its looming shadow wholesale, and then it just crunched into the ground and lay still, belching huge quantities of smoke.

The Imperials cheered, while the Orks who had just previously been fighting to the bitter end suddenly broke and fled back into the manufactorum, pursued by emboldened Guardsmen.

Yendil looked back over his shoulder to see a massive super-heavy tank – a Shadowsword mounted with a still-smoking Volcano Cannon – come crunching into view from out of a ruined building, having previously been hiding hull-down, waiting for an appropriate target, and the walkers of A.S. 4 had done just that. It was painted the same dull blue as the Sentinels were, though on its side was stencilled a huge 59 alongside the Northam sigil, earmarking it for the Northam 59th Armoured Brigade, its target coordinates transferred to it by the Sentinels of A.S. 4.

And then a line of Northam tanks from the 36th Brigade come streaming in, their main turret weapons firing at an impressive rate as they crunched over rubble and began to power down the slope, the infantry moving aside to let them through. Men from C and D Companies advanced in their wake, spreading out down the slope and pushing on to join the main assault. Some of them stopped to greet their E Company comrades, shaking hands or exchanging backslaps.

The Shadowsword super-heavy receded into the ruins, its work done for the time being.

"Lucan!" called Yendil as Captain Farron trudged his way down the slope to meet him.

"Sorry we're late," Farron replied, sheathing his sabre so he could greet Yendil with a hearty handshake, with a firm grip on each man's inner forearm. "These savages were always known for being stubborn bastards. Well either that or they just love a good fight, but I always think it's the former."

Yendil chuckled. "Well you're here now, that's all that matters."

"The vox traffic says that the Colonel and Major are already inside through the south entrance," Farron then added, "so I think we should go and join them, don't you?"

"Agreed," nodded Yendil, taking up his bolt pistol and opening the micro-bead link to his platoon leaders. "E Company...forwards, for the Emperor!"

"Onwards you glorious bastards!" Jenson was then shouting through his own micro-bead, via the general channel. "Come on before all the glory is stolen from us!" he added, and there was a howl of agreement as D Company rushed on ahead of the others. Jenson always did have a way with words, even if it wasn't as succinct as anything Commisar Dorn could come up with.

Farron just shook his head and smirked, then he drew his own sabre and started to run forwards, catching up with his men as they joined the throngs of bodies advancing up the loading ramp, skirting around the ruined form of the Stompa.

* * *

" _Back! Back!"_

Abel grabbed the collar of a sergeant who had just taken a serious hit to the sternum and looked just about dead, his armour cracked and his fatigues soaked with blood. He was probably already good as dead, but Topher Abel prided himself on never leaving any of his men behind, and began to pull.

He fired his lasgun one-handed into the Orks that were streaming up in front of their position. He could see a few stragglers, his men, fighting to the very last against impossible odds. There were insane pockets of hand-to-hand fighting as they fought with bayonets, lasgun stocks or personal trench weapons, before they were inevitably overwhelmed. He saw Lieutenant Cox cut down at least three Orks with his sabre before a fourth came up behind him and impaled him through the back with a large knife. It was laughing as it lifted him up into the air and then just tossed his limp corpse to the ground like it was tossing a hay bale.

Abel riddled it with the last of his current power cell and it fell only after it had taken a few hits to the face. Then he just threw his lasgun down and grabbed onto the wounded trooper's collar with both hands, dragging him back more boldly now.

Even with Commisar Dorn and Abel himself inspiring the men to the utmost sacrifice, there was no chance under two hundred of them could hold that line for very long against so many Orks. Half of them had been killed in the space of ten minutes, and then the Orks had driven in a huge mob of armoured Ard Boyz in their second attack wave and the Northam soldiers had little choice but to fall back, covered by the efforts of four men with flamers and another two with meltas. Even now Abel could hear the whoosh of the flamer hoses and the shrieking of greenskins as they were reduced to blackened skeletons or pools of molten slag.

Commisar Dorn was with them, hacking left and right with _Impavidus,_ his bolt pistol spent and discarded minutes ago. He was shouting an Imperial prayer at the top of his voice and his cap was gone again, though this time it seemed likely that it was gone for good. Abel was screaming into his micro-bead link for them to pull back, and after taking a few more seconds to execute a Nob trying to kill him with a huge railroad spike fashioned into a spear, Dorn turned and lead the assault troopers back towards the others.

"Back! Back to the trench!" Abel was shouting into his micro-bead, and then the load of the wounded trooper suddenly lessened considerably and he realised it was because one of the other sergeants had stopped and hefted up the man's legs, and soon enough they were both ferrying him towards the field hospital entrance where a gurney was already waiting. On either side, Northam troopers were dropping into a pre-dug trench intended to be the absolute final line of defence from attack. They began to bed in and set up old heavy stubber and multi-laser weapons that they had scrounged together from the regimental armoury beforehand.

"This man needs help! Whatever you can provide!" Abel shouted at the orderlies gathered as he and the sergeant dumped the wounded man onto the gurney, and he let out an involuntary sigh or groan. One of the older orderlies just took out his stethoscope and put it against the man's chest.

"He's already gone," was all he said.

Abel lowered his head and sighed, then just began to nod slowly. "Okay. Put him with the rest of the...departed, could you?" The orderly just nodded and wheeled the body away with the help of his fellows. Then Abel turned away and hurried over to take his own position in the trench alongside the sergeant. Commisar Dorn stood up at ground level still, reeling off a long list of planets and locations: past great victories of the Northam 19th's history.

"Come on then," whispered Abel as he drew his laspistol and set it on top of the trench step, alongside the spare cells he had for it. The sergeant dropped into the space beside him, checking the charge on his lasgun. Abel glanced over and noted the 'H' stencilled on his left shoulder guard.

"You were with H Company?" asked Abel, despite what was coming after them.

"Yes," the sergeant nodded, looking over.

"Your squad make it?"

"None of them," the sergeant sighed, shaking his head. "I could be the only one left. Captain Corvo and so many others – gone, just like that."

"I know its hard soldier, but we all knew the price we pay in the Emperor's service. What's your name."

"Henderson," the man answered.

"Then it was good to know you, Sergeant Henderson." Abel extended an am and shook and the sergeant's own gauntlet, and then both of them turned back to face front as the Orks thundered in closer and closer. Six feet away, Commisar Dorn was finishing up on his spiel.

"...and even though your forefathers gave their lives to protect your blessed home, they did so safe in the knowledge that each and every one of you would be able to wear the mantle of your planet's greatest heroes, to cross the stars, and to put the Old Enemy to the sword, even if that bought you to the very rim of the galaxy!"

The men roared in approval, even though it looked as though they weren't long for this world.

"Time to die like heroes," Abel said into his micro-bead, with the grim resignation of a man about to see his command come an end in the most total manner, and with no way of protecting the unfortunates behind them. He squinted down the sights of his weapon, fixed his aim over the centre mass of the first Ork in the advancing horde.

But then there was a shireking note and a series of explosions ripped through the front edge of the Ork charge. The greenskin that Abel had been aiming at was suddenly torn in two, the top half thrown up into the air.

"Okay," Abel said into his micro-bead, "which of you had a missile launcher with you the whole time and didn't tell me about it?" He heard a few hurried protests from the squad leaders left over, but then there was the shrieking again and more missiles exploded amongst the green horde, tossing a few bodies into the air. The men started to cheer, as Commisar Dorn looked to the west, and then he was pointing his outstretched chainsword and shouting something.

A squadron of three Valkyrie fighters screamed overhead, their weapon mounts blazing. They were painted in the same dull blue as the other Northam fighting elements, and had the crest of Northam Prime painted on their flank. Their missile pods spat another volley of munitions, and then they were screeching over the battle to turn and come back around for a second attack run.

"Now!" shouted Abel, sighting his lasgun and opening fire. "Now! Repel them!" A second later the rest of his company was following suit, the heavy weapon mounts opening up and sheeting tracer fire into the milling Orks that had rapidly found themselves on the backfoot. The Valkyries screeched overhead again, but this time at a lower speed, with their rear loading ramps wide open.

Two of the fliers disgorged a squad of Northam Storm Troopers wearing grav-chutes who descended at a steady rate to solid ground. They were firing even as they descended, cutting down or blowing apart even more Orks, and then once they were a few feet from the ground they detached their chutes and landed softly, firing the whole time.

The last remaining flier deposited one final squad of Storm Troopers on the opposite side of the Ork horde, with Captain Vlad Wilder at the helm, firing his bolt pistol one-handed as they descended to ground level. Then they were grounded and he was rushing forwards, drawing an expertly-crafted boline knife in his right hand. Seconds later his men were crashing into the Orks from both sides.

Having just been freed from their mission to retake the high governor's palace, Wilder and his platoon had just received Abel's distress signal and they had rushed straight here on their transports, arriving just in the nick of time, as I Company could see. The Storm Troopers were firing point-blank into the Ork ranks, clubbing with the stocks of their hellguns or slashing with war knives. Wilder was in the thick of it all, driving his knife straight down through the top of an Ork skull, then pulled it free sideways and opened another's throat, slashing back and cutting open its chest, then spinning it around and plunging the tip through the eye socket of a third. He punched it sideways through the temple of yet another, smacking his bolt pistol against the knife hilt to push it right through into the greenskin's brain.

"Come on!" yelled Abel, scrambling up out of his trench and looking back at his men. "We've just been delivered from oblivion, Sons of Northam!" Then he was sprinting forwards, and the others were leaping up en masse to follow their leader towards glory.

"Forwards, for _Northam and the Emperor!"_ Commisar Dorn was then bellowing, and then he was holding _Impavidus_ up for all to see and a hundred battered, bloodied Northam Guardsmen went screaming down into the hordes of the invaders, and the slaughter commenced.

 **A/N: So, this was meant to be just three chapters and an epilogue chapter, but this turned out to be longer than I originally planned so it's been expanded to four chapters instead of three. Anyways, please R &R as normal guys, all feedback is appreciated.**


	4. 4: Sons of Northam

**Chapter 4: Sons of Northam**

' _As long as the blood of Northam's founding fathers run through my veins, I shall never rest in my duty to Northam or to the Emperor. And I will expect no less of each and every one of you.'_ **– Colonel Gaius Nova, after his appointment as CO of the 19** **th** **Northam Guard**

Inside of the manufactorum, the sound was even worse than outside. They were essentially fighting inside of a giant box that bounced sound off of the four walls, floors and ceilings, so the crack of Ork weapons and Imperial lasguns, the shouted commands from platoon leaders and the screams of the wounded and dying was even more pronounced, to the extent that some of the men inside could barely function at their best.

The cavernous interior was roughly divided into three by a pair of massive assembling lines, each of which held a dozen Leman Russ chassis, complete with the main body and track units, though before the sponson and turrets had been mounted. The lines were still, the tank bodies just sitting there idly, deactivated servitors and other machinery just hanging limply. Off to one side of the workfloor were assembly lines for the smaller components of each tank, work benches and desks abandoned.

A and B Company of the Northam 19th and the 78th Pardus Mechanised came surging onto the main workfloor from the south entrance, scattering a modest Ork resistance before them, while in the rear even more of the greenskins were gathering to meet them head-on. Several mobs of the beasts had taken up residence up on the network of maintenance catwalks above their heads, firing down into the mass of Imperial soldiers rushing in to eject the invaders. Several men were cut down, as even the Orks' notoriously poor accuracy had a wealth of targets to aim for.

"Shaw, take two platoons and take the high ground!" Dolan commanded through his micro-bead, and twenty feet behind him the Lieutenant just nodded and then began to direct his own platoon and Lieutenant Harlow's 2nd Platoon off to the side, clattering up a set of metal stairs to the catwalks while the rest of them carried on.

Colonel Nova glanced to his right as they passed down the centre of the assembly floor, and he could see the shapes of more Northam soldiers coming to meet them, alongside more Pardus and Armageddon Steel Legion troopers, unmistakable in their greatcoats and rebreather masks, driving into the side of the Ork defence line and scattering them with ease.

"Cover fire!" he shouted, moving back from the front and grabbing for the vox horn offered by the signals officer that Archer had procured for them. He opened the Northam Guard channel and shouted into the handset as loud as he could manage. "This is A, contacting C and E – do you hear me?"

"Receiving, A," chimed Farron's voice after a brief pause.

"Receiving you A," answered Yendil shortly after, sounding a little short on breath.

"Glad you could both make it," Nova chuckled, glancing around to check the situation. His refractor field fizzled and crackled as small-arms fire was deflected or absorbed harmlessly.

"Oh yes, I'm so glad that we arranged this planet-side constitutional," deadpanned Farron. "I was so looking forward to us all sitting down and having a nice catch up Gaius, but of course these idiot greenskins had to turn up and ruin the day."

"Well I have been politely asking them to stop," Yendil chimed in, "via bolt pistol shots to the face."

"I appreciate that Captain, but right now we have to drive these beasts out of this place so the locals can get about to kicking them off-planet for good. And then we can have that constitutional," Nova replied. Farron sniggered.

"Suggestions?" asked Yendil, and then his line crackled and they heard a grunt, and then a few booming retorts from a bolt pistol.

"We're coming at them from both directions in two separate forces, so I say we should keep that advantage," Farron replied. "If we all joined in one group we'll just get bogged down too much. From what I can see those assembling lines and the work environment will just slow a larger force of bodies down. I know we're the Imperial Guard, but even you have more sense than that, sir?"

"Agreed," Nova nodded, even though they couldn't see him then and there. "Yendil, take your company along the northern wall and root them out from the side – keep your assault weapons close, use those flamers well. Farron?"

"Yes sir?"

"Go straight past us and up the west wing. I'll take my company and Dolan's straight up and we'll pass each other. Take your boys and Jenson's and sweep around on their left flank so we hammer them from three sides at once. They love a good fight, so we'll sure as hell give them one. Understood?"

"Understood, Gaius," answered Farron.

"Understood," chimed Yendil. "The Emperor Protects."

"The Emperor Protects," the other two replied, and then the vox channel cleared.

Thirty feet above their heads, Shaw spread his squads out across the network of catwalks they found themselves on while return fire from the Orks stabbed back at them from the opposite gangways. Settling down into the cover offered by ferrosteel railings and plating, they started to return fire. Shots made contact and sent greenskin bodies tumbling from the catwalks onto the machinery below, or otherwise just spinning them off of their feet and leaving them piled onto floor grating. The odd Northam Guardsman was hit and fell too.

"Time to make up for some lost time," Ulysses Bowman said to his squad as they crouched down at the space where the catwalk split off into a T-junction with a mob of Orks positioned about thirty feet away, half of them firing with their shootas and the other half charging straight up at them, screaming.

Joplis just stood his ground and dropped the first five with precise shots to the head, leaving a small mound of bodies in front of them, and then he was spun around off his feet when a shoota round punched into his right shoulder, most of the impact absorbed by his flak armour but otherwise keeping him alive.

"Idiot," admonished Bowman as he grabbed Joplis by the collar of his jacket and hauled him back into cover. The newcomer was groaning and clutching a hand to his crumpled armour plating. It was a good bet that he had a shattered collarbone at the moment. "Next time you want to do some good try doing it in a less open space!"

"You're welcome sarge," groaned Joplis as he was propped up against the nearest plating, lasgun still in his hands. "Means you've got five less Orks to deal with before they reach us." Bowman didn't respond to that as he turned and fired from a crouch, knocking a few more assaulting Orks down, and then two more of his squad were rushing in with trench mallets to beat the remaining greenskins down.

"Beltan! Smoke them!" Bowman was yelling, and then the big man with the grenade launcher was already loading some frag grenades into the revolving chamber. He popped up from behind his plate cover and fired off three grenades in quick sequence, explosions tearing across the gangway and tossing several bodies into the air and dropping even more to the work floor far below.

"Bowman! Stop it!" called Lieutenant Shaw over the micro-bead. "You could bring the whole system down with us on it!"

"Don't tell me how to do my damned job, Aldous," growled Bowman in response. Beside him, Beltan fired the rest of his grenades and let out a whoop of joy as another length of catwalk went tumbling down to the main floor. "Just trust us to"-

He was cut off when Beltan took a shot right to the forehead and most of his skull just exploded into a crimson mist, and then he was slammed back off of his feet, clattering down ontot he catwalk. Bowman let out a shout of shock and disgust and stared down at the considerable dead weight of one of his oldest friends, even since their time in the gutter blocks of Flynn's Respite.

"Shit!" he yelled, grabbing his lasgun and swinging up as another mob of Orks came rushing at them from the other side of the T-junction. He swung his weapon around and fired off a long stream of lasfire that cut down the first six Orks like wheat, and then a slugga round punched him off of his feet and crushed the air from his lungs. He crashed down onto his back and coughed up a small fountain of blood that spurted into the air, and all he could think was _God-Emperor damn it._

Then Lieutenant Shaw was rushing in with a fresh squad at his heels, blasting from the hip and driving the assaulting greenskins back. Soon as they were gone, the Lieutenant waved a couple more squads forwards, who began to set up support weapons bedded within the catwalk corners. Then Shaw grabbed onto Bowman's collar and started to pull him back, trailing blood on the steel grating as they went.

"Medic!" called Shaw, and soon enough there was a corpsman there, clamping a dressing across the huge ragged hole in his chest. The sergeant tried to resist, but he was far too weak to even try anything except paw weakly at the medic's blood-soaked hands.

"Get off...get off me"- he tried to say, but then his eyes rolled back and his eyelids closed. He started to shake.

"Damn, he's going into shock!" the corpsman yelled, looking over his shoulder as tracer fire screamed overhead. "Hold him!" Two of the troopers close by held onto Bowman's arms and legs as he bucked and thrashed, in danger of biting into his tongue.

"Watch out for him," Shaw ordered grimly, then swung up and unloaded the rest of his power cell across the way. Orks went tumbling to the floor below, where the remainder of the Northam 19th advanced.

* * *

Mars Square was a massive, open, paved area decorated with numerous huge pillars and great bronze statues of leading figures from Bolias' history, used for a number of worthy events, though primarily it was where the massed war machines churned out in the manufactorums went on inspection parade before they were shipped off-world into the Imperial war effort across the Segmentum. But right now it was paying host to a massive armour battle.

On one side was the Ork's armoured force, consisting of at least a dozen battlewagons surrounding a massive Skullhamma Battlefortress with dozens of smaller trucks and buggies, and then beyond that were half a dozen Stompas in one single, destructive mob, lead by a ramshackle Big Mek's creation that was generating a crackling power field to shield its fellows. They blossomed and crackled as munitions exploded harmlessly against the shielding.

On the opposite side was a significant force of Imperial Guard armour, largely formed from Bolian and Steel Legion armoured brigades, centred around a sizeable force from the 201st Armageddon Steel Legion Armoured, alongside a light force of Sentinels from the Pardus Mechanised 101st. The latter skirted the edge of the main force, harrying the small Ork vehicles with autocannons, missiles and lascannons and wisely avoiding the attention of the Stompas.

The 36th Northam Armoured brigade powered up the extreme western and eastern edges of the square in two similarly-sized forces, Cadogus at the head of one and Lucain leading the other at the western side. Having completed their escort of the infantry to the manufactorum they had split off and headed into this fresh battle to assist their comrades in taking back the square. The final support elements of the 36th Brigade had joined the offensive, including two more Vanquishers and a squadron of Macharius tanks with their super-heavy Vulcan mega-bolter mounts, lagging at the back of the Major's formation.

"Reading a lot of contacts," barked Lucain's gunner as he looked down at his auspex screen. "Fifty and rising!"

"I always liked a challenge," said Lucain with a wolf-like grin, and then grabbed for his vox-handset and keyed it through to the _Surgical Strike_. "Major? Are you getting the same reading as we are?"

"I am indeed, Lucain," Cadogus responded calmly, staring at his own readings as the numbers continued to trill upwards to sixty and more. "We'll have to play this smart and fast, as always."

"Is there any other way?" asked Lucain rhetrocially, just as warning runes began to flash up on the instruments of the _KO Punch_. "The Orks are beginning to find range with their light arms." As if on cue, small arms fire and heavier shot began to patter against the hull of their tank like hail.

"Well I suppose we better reciprocate," Cadogus responded. "Preferably with a tank shell or three to the face. _Lay on and fire at will!_ " he bellowed through the vox.

There was a series of roars and shrieks as the main weapons of the Northam tanks opened up, the vehicles slowing down slightly so that their shots would be more accurate. Explosions blossomed among the Ork buggies and trucks, flipping several of them and reducing others to rapidly expanding balls of flame. Practically every shell fired from the Northam tanks found a target, causing great damage. Cadogus was very particular about the gunners and layers he adopted into his brigade, demanding the utmost of every single one of them, even if the washout rate for candidates was almost seventy percent. But his standards were paying off admirably now.

The _Surgical Strike_ was suddenly bracketed by a series of explosions that rocked it boldly but otherwise the hull held. One of the sponson gunners looked back from his seat, eyes flicking up towards the sky. "What was that?" he asked.

"Picking up some Ork gun crews on the auspex," the layer called out, consulting the screen. "Permission for sponson weapons to engage?"

"Granted," Cadogus said, and then he reached up and undid the hatch latches, and he was pushing through and out into the sound and fury of the battle.

The boom of munitions and the shriek of tank shells was undercut with the sounds of the sponson weapons opening up – heavy bolters, flamers and even the odd plasma cannon. He saw a couple of trucks riddled with heavy bolter fire and get torn apart in seconds, alongside its greenskin cargo. Then he grabbed onto the grips of the massive storm bolter fixed to the tank's pintle mount and pulled back the bolt, loading the gun with a loud click, and swung it around to face the shocked-looking gun crews, hiding around the side of a huge support pillar.

"Dance or die, your choice," he shouted to them before he squeezed down the trigger and the clattering weapon already started to tear through the fragile Grot crews and their slavers, or even catching stockpiles of shells and ammunition and setting them off in great gouts of flame and shrapnel. The tanks behind him opened up with their own sponson and pintle weapons, causing further destruction.

At the opposite side of the square Lucain's detachment had engaged the Ork armour, quickly wrecking one battlewagon and crippling two more. The cannons on the remaining vehicles swung around and fired, and while most of the munitions went wide one of the tanks was bracketed and its left sponson mount went up in flames and it slewed to a halt. Shortly after the event, Cadogus heard Lucain's voice over the vox in his ear.

" _Strike and Shroud, gentlemen!"_

A few seconds later Lucain's detachment fired off their smoke launchers, and thick white smoke was obscuring their lumbering forms. But the tanks kept driving at full pelt through the haze, their weapons blazing at regular intervals. More Ork vehicles were wrecked or disabled in quick measure. The one crippled Leman Russ just hung back, its cannon and hull weapon still firing at closer targets.

 _That's the spirit,_ thought Cadogus with a smile. The younger Lucain may have been hot-headed, impatient and borderline insubordinate when it came to his first few actions with the 36th Brigade, but over time he had taken on his superior's advice and observations and moulded himself into a capable and intuitive tank commander. He had what it took to lead the Brigade, the Major realised in the middle of the chaos. Though spending your career inside a large, noisy machine meant such actions came naturally to him.

Then he was snapped out of his reverie by the clanging of heavy fire against the side hull of his mount and he spun around to see a mob of Orks rushing out from the shadow of an overhanging aqueduct, firing away with their shootas. Cadogus swung the storm bolter to face them and squeezed down the trigger again, cutting most of them apart with a quick burst but the fire from the last one impacted against the side of the turret. The last round struck the spot just below the weapon and exploded into shards, one of them slicing into the flesh above Cadogus' left eyebrow. He reeled back against the cupola behind him, one hand clutching at his bloody face, the other going down to his belt for his laspistol.

"Bastard!" he shouted, dropping the beast with a half dozen shots to its broad torso. Once it was down, he descended back into the safety of the _Surgical Strike's_ interior, holstering his weapon.

"Major!" exclaimed his gunner as Cadogus clamped the hatch shut.

"I'm fine, it's just a scratch!" the Major snapped, tapping at the controls to remotely operate the pintle mount instead. "Mob of Shoota Boys tried to blindside me, I got most of them beforehand though. How are things looking out here?"

"Upwards of thirty Ork vehicles junked, sir, but more are being pinged as we go," called out the gunner as he checked the auspex screen. "Those Stompas are still causing a hell of a lot of damage though. Those power fields are stopping us from causing any damage to them so far." Cadogus shuffled over and peered through the viewfinder, fixing it on the massive shapes of the Stompas ahead of them, their outlines somewhat obscured by the glare of the power fields.

"Wonderful," Cadogus muttered, wiping some blood out of his left eye. He thought to himself for a moment and then grabbed for the vox horn, transmitting to all units in the 36th. "All units, proceed onwards until we're parallel to those Stompas and then execute the scissors manoeuvre. Lay on and fire at will, try and aim for the feet, slow those monsters down." He heard the singing of acknowledgements back and then he switched to another channel.

"This is _Surgical Strike_ to _Violator,_ repeat, this is _Surgical Strike_..." He repeated the hail a few times, and then after what seemed like an age a reply crackled back through the vox.

"This is _Violator,_ go ahead _Surgical Strike_ ," a voice sang through, and Cadogus grabbed the handset in an instant.

" _Violator_ , we are in the Mustering Square and facing a mob of Stompas protected by power fields. We can do what we can from our end but we can't exactly punch through those shields without extra firepower. What is your current ETA?"

"ETA is...three minutes at the most," the _Violator's_ commander responded. "Am bringing through with additional support to tip the scales, _Surgical Strike_. Just do your best out there. The Emperor Protects."

"The Emperor Protects," replied Cadogus, and hung the handset back up, turning back to his seat. The bleeding above his eye had abated somewhat but the pain still stung him somewhat, helping fill him with that righteous fire he had wielded time and time before in past victories. The greenskins had wounded him, and he would repay that slight with their deaths.

"Scissors, go, go, go!" he called into his micro-bead, and then the entire tank just lurched as the driver flung it around at an almost right-angle. It slewed to a brief halt, and then it rushed forwards, out of the smoke, trailing a line of fellow Leman Russ' behind it. Although he couldn't see it physically, the auspex read-out showed Lucain leading his detachment to do the same.

The Scissors manoeuvre wasn't exactly a technique taught to amateur tank commanders due to the fact it involved two separate detachments of tanks driving at one another and then often passing between each other at extremely close distances. There was of course the added danger of the tanks becoming more closely grouped together and falling victim to heavy ordinance. But if they moved fast enough, the risk would be somewhat reduced. It was a move first pioneered by the elite Narmenian armour brigades, and only a tank commander with the utmost confidence - or the largest balls, as Lucain had once put it - would attempt to replicate it.

"All units, pick your targets and lay on at will," Cadogus commanded. "Remember boys, aim for the feet. Try and trip those bastards."

The _Surgical Strike's_ main cannon roared.

* * *

 _You crazy bastards,_ though Lucain as the Northam tanks began to thread through and past one another, their main turret weapons blazing away at a considerable rate as they passed by less than a hundred feet from the Stompas. It would have been considered a suicidal tactic for most competent tank commanders, but he had been Cadogus' second for long enough to trust the major implicitly.

The Stompa's power fields crackled and flickered as explosions tore across their surfaces, close to the bottom, at the feet, looking to trip the immense machines. They fired back, their super-gattlers stitching lines of bullet impacts towards the machines, tracer fire deflecting off of the thick hulls, exposed Grot oilers pointing and shrieking at the passing armour.

And then there was a success. One of Lucain's sergeants – piloting a Demolisher – put a heavy shell right through the power fields and into the crude foot of the leftmost Stompa, blowing apart the armour plating and all of the innards. The massive machine began to list over on its side, the wrecking ball dangling from its right shoulder crashing into the flank of the Stompa beside it, and then that too was suddenly lurching a good few feet with the loud groaning of steel.

"All units, lay on and target the bastard's head, now!" he shouted into the vox horn, and then shortly afterwards the tanks around him were blazing away with their turret and hull weapons, angled for the Stompa's listing head. Demolisher shells tore out large chunks of its armour plating and lascannon bolts punched through the steel or tearing off shoota mounts. Then a vanquisher shell struck the damned thing right under its chin and blew off its entire head, huge sheets of shrapnel and burning wreckage scything through the air.

"Yeah! That's the ticket!" cried Lucain in elation, and he would have jumped for joy were he not cramped within his tank beside his crew. Instead he settled for laughing like an excited loon as he peered through the auspex to pick a new target as the destroyed Stompa began to collapse in on itself like an ancient, crumbling ruin.

And then the _KO Punch_ took a direct hit.

For Lucain, the next four seconds went by painfully slowly, as though time itself was unspooling, lengthening considerably. He saw the bright red warnings flash on the instruments, he felt the massive force strike the tank hull on the front left quadrant and the lurching motion as it was punched several feet sideways. And then he saw the impossibly bright burst of light from inside as something vital was destroyed, and then he saw his loader turned into a spray of red and bone fragments, and the Captain's eyes went wide as he saw the large piece of hull shrapnel come spinning end over end, directly at his face. He wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time-

Then the shrapnel punched into his skull just above his left eyebrow and he was flung backwards, cracking the back of his head off of the decking, knocking himself out cold.

* * *

Cadogus saw the _KO Punch_ take a direct hit from a deff kannon, but the shell was a dud and didn't explode. Even then, the impact was still horrendous as there was a burst of sparks from the hull as it caved in on itself and the tank itself was punched sideways several feet and spinning around, coming to a halt at an obtuse angle, its turret facing back the way they had come.

 _Damn it!_

And its new position put it in the way of at least two other Leman Russ tanks, who had to slam on their brakes and then take a sudden swerving motion around the stalled Demolisher, and in doing so allowed the remainder of the formation to move on. None of them slowed down at all, despite their obvious need to attend to their Captain. But to slow down then would have only put them all in danger.

As if to highlight that fact, one of the leading tanks on Cadogus' side took a direct hit and just exploded into a blossom of flame and shrapnel, and then another was caught by the tractor beam of the Mek's Stompa, and they saw it get launched a good hundred feet into the sky, hitting the ground with enough force to flatten it like a can. Two more tanks were crippled from glancing hits that put out their track units, and once more their fellows had to swerve around them to avoid a direct hit. Their turrets swung round to acquire new targets and continued firing.

"All units, break and turn, break and turn!" Cadogus shouted into the vox horn, and his tanks started to slow and turn sharply, taking them out of immediate range of the Stompas, and then once they had retreated a good distance they turned and resumed their parallel course, firing back. Another Stompa was strafed with cannon shells and its gun arm mount was torn off in a great eruption of fire, leaving it only to stomp forwards in pursuit of the much smaller but faster tanks.

" _KO Punch,_ please respond!" Cadogus was then calling into the handset as he felt his own vehicle coming around, and then lurching as its Vanquisher cannon fired. He just got a crackle of static from Lucain's vehicle, and the Major cursed, before he threw the handset aside and scrabbled over towards the auspex view finder. Much as he feared for his 1st officer, he knew he had at least another thirty crews to look out for.

"All units, lay on and fire at will! Keep mobile!" he was shouting out to no one in particular, luckily one of his crew was relaying those orders behind him as he swung the screen around and fixed it on the still-advancing form of the Stompa missing its gun arm. He fixed the crosshairs onto the spot beneath its 'chin'. "Fire on my target!" he bellowed.

"Firing on target!" called the gunner. The tank bucked and a flash of white light engulfed the auspex screen. The Stompa's head jerked back from the impact, but otherwise it was intact and took another step forwards. Quick-thinking crews targeted the same spot and soon it was bracketed by at least three Leman Russ squadrons, tearing through its thick armour but doing little to slow it down.

"For the love of the Emperor, will someone _kill the damned thing!_ "

"With pleasure, sir."

The calm voice came from Sergeant Thewlis, who was leading the Macharius squadron, which by then had caught up with the rest of its fellows and was now opening fire, their mega-bolters churning out an obscene amount of fire. The wounded Stompa was riddled with thousands of individual impacts that tore through its armour plating and demolished its face, and then set off a small explosion that tore off the remainder of its head and left it to finally lurch to a halt, smoke belching from its sheared neck.

"Thank you sergeant," Cadogus complimented.

"Anytime sir," Thewlis answered, "moving up to assist," he then voxed, and his squadron began to churn further up the square. Elsewhere, the remainder of Cadogus' armour was landing more hits upon the Big Mek Stompa, though its shields held. It lashed out with its Gaze of Mork, crackling strands of energy reaching out and tearing apart an entire squadron of standard tanks in an instant, and then its tractor beam caught a Demolisher and sent it spinning away freely. It smashed into a support pillar so hard that it was just left imprinted into the rockcrete.

The _Surgical Strike_ was hit by a glancing blow from another deff kannon shell and the Vanquisher was spun savagely, treads screeching in protest. Cadogus was flung backwards and the side of his head slammed into the side of the hull just beside the sponson housing. He blacked out for a second and came round to the screeching of damage alarms in his ears.

"Sit rep!" he cried as he cancelled the alarms and scrambled for his command seat.

"Auspex is down!" cried his loader, tapping at the now-darkened screen. "Fuel line distorted but holding, ammunition magazine still secure!"

"Guess I'll have to aim by eye then," Cadogus groaned, grabbing for his scope and scrambling for the top hatch. The crew shouted for him to stop, but it was too late as he slammed the hatch up and stuck his head and shoulders back out into the air of the battle. Tank rounds screeched back and forth, almost drowned out by the groaning and clanking of the advancing Stompas. He stared up the massive, walking effigies, and felt very small all of a sudden. He suddenly wished that he could have been riding a Baneblade then and there. He saw the swarm of small Ork vehicles rushing out from between the feet of the Stompas.

"Come round point five and fire!" he yelled down into the tank's interior, and then there was the whirr of motors as the turret swung about and fired, a HE shell punching through the side of a truck and blowing it apart in a storm of shrapnel. He called out a second target and the turret swung back and then the treads creaked as the tank moved again, out of the immediate threat zone.

But it might have already been too late. Energy crackled around the Big Mek Stompa's eye as it prepared its Gaze of Mork once more. Cadogus looked up at the immense effigy machine, his main thought being that he would die on this world without seeing his home again.

But then a massive energy blast punched straight through the power fields and caught the Stompa right in the face, tearing half of it away in an immense burst of light and flame that left an afterimage on the Major's retinas. He ducked back into the hatch as the shockwave nearly flattened him, and then looked up in time to see the Stompa starting to fall to the side, its driving force gone. The remaining Stompas suddenly found themselves being bombarded by fire that was no longer being absorbed by energy shields.

"Friendlies on our six!" a voice crackled through the tank's vox, and Cadogus spun himself around to look to the rear.

Significant Northam armour reinforcements of the 59th Armoured Brigade were prowling up through the existing Steel Legion armour, lead by the massive Shadowsword _Violator,_ which had only just managed to make it this far after spending so long finding a clear route through the city. It slowed right down and its cannon roared again with a thunderclap and a massive blast that annihilated the upper half of another Stompa.

The smaller tanks swerved around it, spreading out and adding their own firepower to the battle. Trucks and buggies were wrecked en mass, leaving the disjointed remains milling about as Imperial armour surrounded and wiped them out. Below Cadogus, the vox began to crackle again. He dropped down into the tank and grabbed up the handset.

"Go ahead."

" _Surgical Strike,_ this is _Violator,_ " the response crackled back, "how are you holding up?"

"We've taken some losses _Violator,_ but with your boys here we can hopefully push the Orks back further," Cadogus answered as he stood tall in the cupola. "Impeccable timing, once again by the way."

"I aim to please," chuckled the voice on the other end. "Now come on, there's still work to be done," he added, and the link was cut. The volcano cannon roared once more and yet again one of the Stompas was crippled by a devastating hit.

" _Surgical Strike_ to all units," he ordered through the vox, "reform into your squadrons and destroy at will. Let's get this job done." He dropped the vox horn down into the tank and snatched up his scope, fixing on an approaching dreadnought.

"Come about point four clockwise," he commanded. "Lay on and fire." As the tank bucked again, he saw the _KO Punch_ out of the corner of his eye, limping away slowly from the chaos, trailing smoke. Cadogus let out a slight sigh, and disappeared down into his tank once more, grabbing the vox handset. " _Surgical Strike_ to _KO Punch_ , do you read? I repeat"-

"Reading you sir," chimed a response, a voice that wasn't Lucain's.

"Good to hear from you _KO Punch_ ," smiled Cadogus, "what is Captain Lucain's status, over?"

"Captain Lucain is unconscious sir - he took some shrapnel to the face and plenty of smaller wounds in the process, but he's still in one piece unlike our loader. We have him stabilised, but he won't last long without immediate medicae attention. We could get him to the nearest field hospital within thirty minutes."

"Copy that - get him out of here." With that, Cadogus dropped the handset and clambered back up out of the hatch to resume calling out new targets as he saw them approach.

* * *

As A and B Companies pushed up through the centre, Farron lead C and D Companies around behind the main advance and came around the western flank of the manufactorum, driving up into the side of a second Ork front, while Yendil rushed his own way along A and B's east flank, presenting a united front. Pardus and Steel Legion troopers came along with them, eager to earn their own glory in the climax to come.

Because this was going to be a climax. Gaius Nova would find the monster that drove these beasts and claim its head.

Farron came around the side of a workbench and slammed his sabre through the thick neck of an unsuspecting Ork boy, then pulled it free and sliced open the throat of a second. Then the rest of his men were rushing in on all sides, stabbing and slashing with bayonets. Flamers burped and roared, and Orks went flailing away, consumed by fire. Farron drove the point of his blade through the stomach of a charging greenskin and pushed it back, using it as a shield as he fired his laspistol over its shoulder.

"Steel! Fury! Pride! _Onwards!_ " yelled Captain Jenson to Farron's right, pushing forwards with his command squad. He swung his chainsword and opened up an unprotected throat, and then took off a head with the backswing. He pushed on a little further, passing close to a tall stack of steel shipping crates.

And then something large crashed through said crates, and at least half a dozen Guardsmen were launched into the air, screaming as they fell into the seething mass of bodies and flattening several more. Farron was one of those knocked down and he went flailing to the floor, trying to scramble up as something large and vaguely square in shape stomped into the side of D Company's line.

A Killa Kan strode forwards, the skorcha attached to its left side spewing liquid fire. Nearly twenty men were engulfed in an instant, reduced to screaming torches that thrashed this way and that, a couple of them exploding into bursts of shredded flesh and gore as their ammunition was touched off. One of the blasts knocked Farron down again, but ten feet away Jenson was still on his feet, screaming defiance as he unloaded his bolt pistol at its rusted frame. The bolts just shattered against its shell, and in response Jenson plunged in and slashed his chainsword across the machine's left leg, gouging a long stripe of blemished steel.

"Jenson, no!" Farron yelled as he got to his feet, but it was already too late.

The massive pincer at the end of the Kan's right arm reached in and the shears just closed tight, snipping Jenson in two. The poor bastard didn't even have any time to scream – there was a burst of blood like a tomato being squashed and the two severed halves hit the floor with a wet splat. Farron stared at the mess for a long moment, realising that one of his friends had just been killed in front of him, and then he realised the Kan's skorcha was firing again.

Then with a drawn-out cry of rage he charged forwards, his sabre drawn in his right hand and a krak grenade primed in his left. He knew exactly what to do next. He'd done it twice before, but regardless the risk was considerable.

The Kan's pincers came in to visit Jenson's fate on the younger Captain, but Farron ducked and rolled beneath the huge shears. As he came up he hacked the sabre across the back of its right leg, severing a set of thick cables, and then suddenly the whole thing seized up, the Grot pilot inside shrieking as it tried to swing its steed around. Then Farron was moving around the opposite side and severing the feed for its skorcha, leaving fuel trailing freely. It splashed across the shoulders of his jacket as he rounded to the machine's front.

He leapt up onto the rim on the Kan's front and hauled himself level with the crude viewing slit. He just caught a glimpse of a pair of beady red eyes in the darkness of the interior, and then promptly released the trigger spoon of the grenade and tossed it in through the slit. He heard it bouncing in off of steel plating and then he hurled himself off, pushing his way back through the lines of his men.

"Back, _back!_ " he was screaming.

Behind him, the Kan went up in a terrific fireball as its fuel supply for the flamer went up with the rest of the machine, and the closest Guardsmen were hit by the shockwave which slammed them off of their feet and left those further outside of the radius dazed. Several of them were back on their feet in an instant, though others were slower to do so, groaning as they got up.

"Come on, on your damned feet!" screamed Lieutenant Hunter, kicking at the bodies around him. "You going to let Captain Farron fight the rest of this war for you?!" he added, hauling another man to his feet and almost tossing him forwards to catch up with the rest of his squad. Then he looked the other way and saw Farron slumped on his hands and knees.

"Come on Captain, we can't rest now, even after what you just did," he joked. Farron didn't move.

"...sir?"

He put his hand on Farron's shoulder and the Captain suddenly fell flat, and it was only then that Hunter saw how Farron's entire lower back was saturated red with blood. And that his fatigues were shredded by multiple shrapnel impacts. Slivers of steel winked amongst the crimson cloth.

"Shit! Medic! Medic!"

* * *

On the far side of the tank assembly lines, a gentle slope lead up to the massive altar room where the Mechanicus personnel ran the entire facility, the entrance located beneath a massive Mechanicus symbol. Dozens of Orks poured down the slope to join the battle, accompanied by the occasional Dreadnought or Killa Kan as they went. Shaw's overwatch platoons reaped a considerable toll, but even then there were plenty of Orks still left for the remainder of the 19th to take on. Nova and Dolan lead from the front, slicing through armour and flesh with a blazing powered blade or crushing all with sweeps and smashes of a power glove. The regimental banner of the 19th continued to flutter proudly in their wake as troopers, squad leaders and platoon leaders fought face-to-face with the Old Enemy.

The Colonel's blood in particular was up because he had just heard over the vox that Farron was down. Dead or otherwise wasn't specified, just down. But Captain Jenson was confirmed dead – in two pieces was Lieutenant Hunter's exact description. And as there was no chance at all to find out for himself, all he could do was take out his frustrations on the Orks in front of him. He hacked his blazing blade through the thick torso of another Nob and took a step backwards to catch his breath.

"Give me an update!" he called into his micro-bead, the demand directed at the company leaders.

"C and D on course," crackled the voice of Lieutenant Hunter, who had taken over for C and D's command for the near future. "Captain Farron's being extracted as we speak, but as to whether he makes it or not"-

"Enough Lieutenant," said Nova with finality.

"On course," Yendil then added, "E Company is coming through on your nine o' clock, A. Bringing some reinforcements with me." Looking to his right, Nova saw the squads of E Company pushing up, and trailing behind them were lines of men in sandy greatcoats and rebreather masks.

"Colonel Black of the 299th Steel Legion," a new voice announced in Nova's ear suddenly. "I have to thank your man Yendil here for getting us through the Eastern entrance."

"That's his job Colonel," Nova answered flatly. "We aim to end this here and now. The Warboss can't be too far away."

"Agreed," Colonel Black answered. "Colonel Nova, I'm bringing just under three hundred of my men through the building. It's all that I can spare right now."

"It'll have to do then, Colonel. We're almost done anyway."

And then as if in response to that remark, there was another surging war cry from the Orks, and he looked around in time to see another horde of greenskins rushing out of the open doors at the top of the ramp. There had to be at least three hundred or more of the beasts, and they came rushing down the ramp like the tide would rush onto the sand on a beach. At the front centre of the horde were half a dozen Nobs.

And in the midst of them all was an Ork at least two heads taller than the others, its ugly face bisected from top to bottom by an old, gnarled scar. It was wearing crude steel plates as armour and had a slugga with a double-drum magazine in its right hand, and a massive power claw encasing its left arm. Extending from its back was a long steel pole bearing the glyph of an Ork skull bisected with a vertical line. Or a scar. Which explained the design of the bosspoles he'd been seeing.

That was it. The Warboss.

"Pride of Northam!" howled Nova, "form a firing line! Bayonets and flamers to the fore!" A and B Company spread themselves out, forming a two-deep firing line that glinted with bayonets. Lasguns pointed up into the mass of bodies rushing at them.

" _Fire at will!"_

Lasguns shirked and flamers hissed. Dozens of bodies crumpled to the floor and began to slide down the slope, slowing down their fellows, though some of the larger Orks just hurdled over or crunched through the bodies, eager to taste blood. Frag grenades bounced into the scrum of bodies and went off, shredding more of them, but still they came on. Nova shouted a command and the ranks parted way, allowing him to push through and take up a position at the front. He ignited his sword and it blazed an electric blue.

"Sons of Northam! No quarter! No mercy!"

There was going to be a reckoning. The Orks crashed into the Northam lines.

* * *

Warboss Skarskull hit the line of human soldiers with such force that several of them were smashed clean off of their feet, one of them tossed a good ten feet into the air, screaming as hit the ground and was knocked cold. Then the huge Ork's powered claws were scything about, slicing through the heads and shoulders of more. And then the rest of his boys were rushing into the fray and making themselves busy.

Skarskull laughed as his fired his slugga in his other hand, blowing off another unfortunate's head. This was it at last – the good fight he'd been aching for ever since he'd touched down on this stupid rock, ever since he had first usurped his former Warboss, gouged his eyes out and kicked the stupid git into the Squig pit, and ever since he had promised the boys the fight of a lifetime. They'd already razed three worlds before they had come here, and on each one the fight they had received hadn't been satisfying. He could sense the boys getting restless, and could sense his Nobs starting to doubt him. Especially that stupid git Irongob. That one was just looking for any chance to take Skarskull's place.

But he had struck gold in coming here. Not only did this planet have a considerable number of soldiers for the boys to smash, but this was where the humans built their tanks too. Only if the Meks could get the stupid thing working, they could take all of the tanks they wanted and stomp over many more worlds. All they had to do was finish these last stragglers off and that would be it.

One of the blue-armoured men leapt forwards and thrust his bayonet into the meat of Skarskull's left shoulder, right in between the plates of his armour. The huge greenskin grunted, and then smashed his power claw down on the top of the human's head, crushing him into the floor with the sound an Ork's arse might have made after a night on the fungus beer. But then two more were running in to attack, no fear on their faces.

These humans in the blue...they were giving a very good fight, Skarskull would admit freely. He'd heard how they had already butchered half of his clan on the way to the factory, and amongst that number were two of his biggest and meanest boys into the bargain. And Irongob too, but Skarskull didn't care about that Squig-face to begin with. No matter. Skarskull would enjoy smashing them all in response.

"Come on!" he bellowed, slicing another human in half and smashing the butt of his slugga into the face of another, whipping his head back with a sickening crack. "Get 'em lads! Show 'em what Skarskull's boyz can do!"

But then another of the humans – an officer if his fancy uniform was anything to go by – rushed out of the lines of soldiers and swung at Skarskull with a huge glove that crackled with power. Skarskull swept his own claw around and closed them around the glove's casing, and the officer's attacked stalled dead. Skarskull grinned at the man's face as he tried to move his arm, but it was stuck fast – blue lightning crackling across the casing of both weapons.

Then the officer drew a pistol in his left hand and fired three shots in quick succession. The first one was stopped by Skarskull's armour but the remaining two tore through Skarskull's considerable bulk and blew great gouts of blood and torn flesh out behind the massive Ork. Skarskull barked out a shout of rage and stepped back, releasing his grip on the power glove. The officer, undeterred, stepped forward and swung the glove, smashing it into the left side of the Warboss' ribcage. There was a loud crack as the armour bent inwards and three of the Ork's ribs cracked.

" _Ahhh! You little git!"_ Skarskull roared, swinging his slugga around and smashing it into the side of the officer's head, knocking off his cap and whirling him around to where he fell to the floor. The raging Warboss stepped forwards and tried to punch his claw down through the man's head, but he rolled aside at the last second, scrambling to his feet and preparing to swing his fist again. Skarskull pulled his claw free and the fist clanged off of the steel casing, and the officer stumbled back again, leaving the two opponents to face one another.

The human officer didn't flee like Skarskull expected. He just stood his ground, jaw clenched, blood trickling down one side of his head, a primal fury in his eyes. It was the sign of a good warrior. Skarskull barked out a harsh laugh and thumped forward to finish the stupid git off.

" _Over here you filthy Ork!"_

* * *

Nova felt a palpable shudder of bodies as the Warboss and his cronies slammed into the Northam line. Most of the first row of Guardsmen were smashed off of their feet or outright killed, but luckily the momentum had been slackened enough for the second line to hold. Bayonets and sabres flashed and stabbed and slashed, and Ork bodies thudded to the floor. But plenty of 19th soldiers were falling as well.

Nova hacked his way through a small knot of Ork boys, taking the head off the last one and trailing the slash on into the broad chest of one of the Warboss' retinue. The blade caught on its sternum, but then he gripped his bionic fingers around the grip and forced the sword on, tearing out the Ork's opposite side in a fog of gore. Then another hacked at him with a heavy machete-like blade.

Adamantium fingers closed around the descending weapon and clamped like a vice, stopping it dead. With a smile he pulled it from the Nob's hand and took off its lower jaw with a swipe of his sword, and spun the machete around in his hand to hold it the correct way. He hacked the heavy blade into the neck of another Ork and nudged it out of his way with a kick, then pushed through the melee and punched the spike of his sword through the spine of another Ork blocking his way, tossing it aside as he rushed on to face the Warboss, who Dolan had already engaged. He saw the Major's bolt pistol tear through the massive Ork's stomach, and then saw the pistol whip that knocked him away. He wouldn't last much longer on his own.

Behind him the 19th continued to fight as reinforcements from C and D Companies began to pour in from the back, pushing the line forwards. There was a chance they could win this through sheer number of bodies, but Nova knew that slaying the Warboss would at least help put a dent in the greenskin's insane confidence. He'd seen it before. He'd done it before at the Battle of Six Fronts.

He broke through the bulk of the Ork lines and came upon a pair of Nobs that came right at him, one armed with a power claw and the other wielding a two-handed choppa with a chainsaw edge. It stomped forwards and whirled the huge blade at Nova's head and he ducked down to avoid the whirring teeth. He came back up and hacked the sword straight up, splitting the shaft in half, and then as the Nob stumbled back, surprised, he leapt forwards and sliced off both arms at the elbow.

It dropped to its knees howling as the one with the power claw came in from the side and attacked, trying to close its pincers around his head. He ducked low and rolled forwards, slashing as he came up and severing the beast's hamstrings. It went down like the one before and then the Colonel was up and driving the sword down, impaling through the Ork's shoulder and down into its chest cavity. The stench of burnt blood and flesh was almost overwhelming as he ripped it free and the Nob fell flat on its face, then he turned and finished the screaming one with the missing hands by lopping its head off.

He watched as the head bounced back down the slope, and he caught a glimpse of Sergeant Archer clutching the regimental banner in one hand, and swinging his chainsword in the other. Even using the heavy weapon with one hand, he was easily swatting aside any attacks that came at him and striking back with fluid accuracy. He could trust Archer to keep the line strong, and Nova turned away and raced over towards the Warboss as it prepared another attack. Sword held out to one side, he shouted out to the monster.

" _Over here you filthy Ork!"_

The Warboss swung around to face him, and then the Colonel saw it up close for the first time. Its head was just a slab-like rectangle of bone and green flesh, its face split from top to bottom by a scar, but up close he could see just how old and gnarled it was. Similar scars covered its massive arms, indicative of a life full of violence. An Ork only got that far in its 'career' by being savage and brutal.

"You want a good fight?!" called out Nova, "well come and get one!" he added, igniting his blade for added emphasis.

"Ha! Good one little man," the Ork chuckled in his rough voice and stomping around to face the Colonel. "I cud snap you like a twig! Not even werth it!"

Nova snorted. "You're not the first Ork to say that to me. You think I'm anymore intimidated by you?"

"You should 'uman!" barked the Warboss. "You know who I am?! I'm Boss Skarskull!

"Good for you," Nova called, and then looked past the huge form at Dolan. "Major, look to the line. I'll deal with this beast." Over the Warboss' shoulder Manfred Dolan held the Colonel's fierce gaze for a long moment, and then he just nodded, turning away and trudging back down the slope to come into the Ork line from behind. Nova turned his gaze to the massive Ork now, as the beast slowly flexed its power claw open and shut.

Most Imperial Guard commanders would have thought twice before taking on an Ork Warboss in single combat, but Nova had done it twice before. And granted, each time had ended with him taking some terrible injury, but he had succeeded. And besides, the more time the beast was focused on him meant it could focus less of his men, and he knew a rampaging Warboss could do untold damage if left unchecked.

He kept his pistol holstered – he'd need both hands on the hilt of his sword to defend against the Ork's powerful attacks – and moved the sword into a diagonal position, covering his lower left to the upper right quadrant, ready to move the blade to any position when the inevitable first attack came.

With a roar, Skarskull launched himself with surprising speed at Nova, sweeping his power claw in a massive haymaker motion. Nova saw it coming a mile away and clipped the edge of the claw, redirecting the strike and spinning past the Warboss, ending up behind him, so they had swapped positions, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. With a growl Skarskull tried the exact same move as he turned, and once again Nova spun past the beast. This time though he sliced his sword down, straight through the steel plating and cutting into the Warboss' broad back.

The stench of burnt blood and flesh filled Nova's nostrils, but he had to focus as the raging Warboss spun and came for him again, firing its slugga. The Colonel's flickering refractor field absorbed three heavy bullets before he came in and sliced his sword from left to right, carving through the heavy pistol and leaving the front half of its barrel and its drum magazine to hit the floor with a noticeable thud. Skarskull was left holding a trigger assembling and the back half of the barrel, a surprised look on his face.

"Nice try," Nova chided.

With a bellowing roar Skarskull tossed the remains at Nova and then rushed in after it, attempting a backhanded strike with his claw. Nova flicked the wreckage aside with ease and once more ducked beneath the telegraphed strike and slashed from left to right with his sword, slicing through the right side of Skarskull's ribs as he passed. Blood sprayed across the floor and the massive Ork stumbled, giving Nova the oppourtunity to spin around and attack again, aiming for the Ork's skull. But his distance was greater than he thought and he just succeeded in cutting off the bosspole instead. Roaring even louder, Skarskull tried to engulf Nova in a bear hug, but the Northam Colonel darted past his opponent, then turned, took hold of the sword hilt with both hands and punched it into Skarskull's back.

The firebrand speared right through Skarskull's armour, flesh and bone, erupting out of his stomach in a horrific spurt of blood. Roaring in agony, the Ork thrust his head back and caught Nova on the forehead, sending the Colonel stumbling back and releasing hold on his sword at the same time. He fell to the floor, which was beneficial as Skarskull spun round and tried to hit the Colonel with a backhanded swing of his claw that would have killed him otherwise. His spin turned him a full 360 degrees though, so Nova leapt up despite the blood running into his eyes and grabbed the hilt, tearing the blade free. Skarskull twisted around again to attack and Nova chopped the blade down onto the Ork's left shoulder.

The armour and flesh gave way again, but the sword got caught on Skarskull's thick collarbone and lodged there, but the kinetic energy of the blow forced the Warboss into a crouch. The Ork looked up at Nova's furious face with beady red eyes, then he started to growl as he stood up slowly, using his claw to push the power sword out of his shoulder and then promptly tried to smash his right fist into Nova's face. But the wily Colonel ducked low and rolled away, coming up in a half-crouch as the Warboss rolled his wounded shoulder a couple times, and then offered a toothy grin.

"That all ya got, softskin?" it asked.

"No," was Nova's answer, as he hurled himself at the beast once again.

* * *

Captain Yendil pushed his men up around the east flank of the main advance and came up on one hell of a fight going on as what had to be the last of the Ork resistance poured into the front line. He could see the thrusting of bayonets, the slashing of blades and cudgels, and the spray of crimson as blood was spilt and lives on both side taken. A mound of corpses was starting to form on the Ork side, and the remainder were struggling to get at what remained of the Northam A and B Companies.

"Spread out! Support fire!" he was yelling to the men around him and they began to fan out, joining the back of the existing squads and pushing up to the front, while others stayed back and fired over the heads of their comrades at any targets they could acquire. Yendil raised his bolt pistol to fire when he saw something else on the other side of the melee.

He saw Colonel Nova, engaged in single combat with the monstrous Ork Warboss. He'd just impaled the beast on his power sword and then ripped it free, but the monster was still on its feet, swinging its power claw at Nova while the Colonel danced this way and that, slashing when he could, his strikes deflected by his enemy's claw or dodged entirely. The beast was a lot faster on its feet than it looked.

Much as he wanted to get over there and help his commander out, there were more pressing concerns. Particularly, where a trio of Nobs were just about to break through the Northam lines and cause untold chaos. "With me!" the Major bellowed and rushed forwards, trailing a dozen Guardsmen with him.

He reached the front just as the first Nob smashed aside a sergeant with a hammer and bullied its way through the Northam lines. Yendil met it halfway and hacked his sabre into its face and it flinched back, blood sheeting into its eyes as the Guardsmen either side took the opportunity to finish it with their bayonets, but then the other two rushed in, one of them grabbing Yendil by the head.

The beast was a good two feet bigger than him and had little trouble in forcing him all the way back, smashing him against the nearest wall with enough force to crumple the backplate of his armour and knock the air from his lungs. Then it used its other hand to smash his sword arm against the plating, knocking the sabre out of his hand and snapping his forearm into the bargain. With a muffled scream Yendil fired his bolt pistol blindly, blowing a chunk of flesh from its thigh and its grip slackened somewhat, allowing him to pull his arm free and land a punch on its jaw. There was a solid crack as Yendil's knuckles shattered, but he ignored the pain as he unloaded the remainder of his pistol magazine into the Nob's barrel-sized chest, the last shot dropping its stinking corpse onto the floor.

He gasped and fell to his knees as a trooper rushed to his side. "Captain, Captain!" he cried, taking hold of Yendil's arm to help him up.

"I'm fine," he insisted, a little breathless, "just get me"-

He never finished his sentence as the last Nob in the group fired its big shoota, and Yendil was splattered against the wall alongside the poor trooper.

* * *

Nova swerved around Skarskull's huge fist as it tried to crash into his face, and he came back around, putting as much strength as he could muster into a one-handed swing towards the Ork's neck. One good stroke would have taken its head clean off and ended the fight then and there. But the blow didn't land. Instead his sword was suddenly clamped in the pincers of Skarskull's claw, and the slash stopped dead. He locked eyes with his opponent and the Ork grinned a terrible smile at him, and then the pincers clenched.

The power sword – gifted to Nova six years ago upon earning his command of the regiment – snapped in half. Nova flew back, his sword arm pinwheeling back and left holding eighteen inches of steel while the other half sailed away. Undeterred, Nova lashed out with his bionic fist as he lurched backwards. It smashed into the corner of the Ork's jaw hard enough to knock out one of its fangs in a spurt of blood.

"Ah! Little bugger!" roared the Warboss, and promptly smashed its fist into Nova's jaw. The impact was so severe that he was nearly spun off of his feet, his cap flying off. He came back around as the Ork's power claw came in from his right and he tried to spin away once more, but the claw's leading pincer caught the stomach plate of his armour, buckling the plate and crushing into his body and knocking him off his feet. He went sprawling, cracking his forehead off of the floor.

He blacked out for a second. When he came round, he could taste blood in his mouth and was vaguely aware of the chaos of battle, and the low thuds of steel-shod boots coming closer. He opened his eyes, could see his men, his boys, fighting to the last. They had taken a terrible toll on the Orks, but they were close to breaking, he could see that clearly. Unless something drastic happened. He hauled himself forwards, his right hand closing around the grip of his destroyed blade. His lungs burned as he struggled to breath. He wouldn't be conscious for long, if that monster didn't slaughter him and his men first. His thumb touched the ignition switch on the sword grip.

The shattered blade half burst into blue light, only for a brief second. He realised that while the blade was shattered, the circuits powering it remained intact. The glow faded and a massive shadow fell over him. He had a sudden thought, but he'd have to execute it perfectly.

"Guess you wasn't a propa fight, eh?" chuckled Skarskull, reaching down to haul Nova to his feet.

Nova leapt up as fast as he could manage, gripping the broken sword and igniting it at the same time. He turned at the waist and slashed wide. The broken edge severed Skarskull's hand at the wrist and the Warboss drew back immediately, bellowing in pain and rage. Then Nova spun the blade around so the pommel sat beneath his thumb and he slashed back, opening up the front of the Ork's legs. The beast drew back further and Nova moved forwards and plunged the blade back, punching it into the right side of Skarskull's ribs, through the wound he had inflicted earlier on.

The powered steel slid right on through flesh, muscle and bone, lancing internal organs. Skarskull roared louder than before and tried to club what remained of his right arm onto the Colonel's head. Nova bought his bionic hand up and caught the descending limb, stopping it with some effort. Huffing, he clenched his fingers into green flesh and jerked his wrist, throwing it aside and giving him the momentum to stand up, ripping his sword free from Skarskull's ribs and instead driving it through the side of his thick neck.

There was a spurt of blood as the tip of the shattered blade erupted from the opposite side of the Warboss' neck, and its red eyes opened even further than one could imagine. Trying to choke out a croaking groan, the massive Ork thudded to its knees, so Nova could look it right in the eye. It continued to open and close its mouth like a fish, trying to form words.

"Was that a good enough fight, Ork?" asked Nova.

Then he pulled the blade free once more, raised his arm, and drove it down through the top of the Ork's skull. There was an awful crack of bone splitting, and as Skarskull's body started to twitch, he twisted the sword hilt, and then smashed his bionic fist into the side of Skarskull's face with as much force as he could muster. The massive body whipped away, the sword breaking off and leaving him to hold an empty hilt.

Drained, Gaius Nova collapsed onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. Then he was fumbling for the straps of his armour and undoing them, letting the battered plate that covered his stomach fall away. He stayed there for a few seconds, coughing and retching as his diaphragm began to work properly again. He was vaguely aware of the Orks that fled past him on either side, several of them cut down by shots to the back.

"Colonel!" yelled a voice, boots thudding close. _"Colonel!"_

He looked up as Sergeant Archer came into view, his chainsword slick with blood. He dropped the heavy weapon and passed the regimental banner to the soldier beside him, as the rest fanned out to form a new defensive line beyond their exhausted Colonel. "Colonel, are you alright?"

"Better than him," said Nova, indicating towards Skarskull's remains. Major Dolan came up beside them and laughed dryly upon hearing that remark.

"That's the spirit, chief!" he announced, and then added, "we've got them on the turn!"

"Seek and destroy," Nova growled, getting to his feet unsteadily, wiping a stream of blood away from the corner of his mouth. "Get me a vox link to the others.

"Yendil's down," Archer said quietly. Nova's gaze turned to him instantly, his face initially passive, but then a look of loss fell over it, his shoulders slumping slightly, and he let out a tired sigh.

"How?"

"Ork Nob hit him with a big shoota. Poor bastard didn't stand a chance."

"Then let's go and make this all worthwhile," Nova said grimly, reaching down and drawing a short sabre as a replacement for his shattered power sword. He spoke into his micro-bead as he started to stride forward. "Sons of Northam... _no mercy, no quarter!_ "

With a resounding howl, the remainder of the Northam 19th rushed on. Nova took the regimental banner as his command squad drew closer, and held it high for them all to see as he followed them on to further glory.

 **A/N: So the new chapter is finally here. So after this there will be a shortish epilogue, and then that will be it for The Pride of Northam. But in the meantime, R & R as normal please. All feedback is appreciated, after all.**


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 _'Come on. Let's go and kill these bastards so we can go home.'_ -Major Manfred Dolan, 19th Northam Guard, at the Battle of Six Fronts

 **146.966.M41, Mars Square, Forge World Bolias**

Afterwards, Imperial tacticians called it the Relief of Bolias. That long, dark day where Ork invaders came to sack a minor forge world, and instead were wholly denied over the course of a single day by massed reinforcements from Battle Group XII. In particular, the slaying of Warboss Skarskull in single combat by Northam Colonel Gaius Nova would rapidly gain a particular legend of its own.

Though Skarskull's death did not mean the end of the battle, as the remainder of his horde was driven north out of the capital city, pursued by massed armour reinforcements as the Tech-priests got the manufactorums back online. In the end, most of what had been Waaagghh! Skarskull was wiped out in a three hour pitched battle after being driven into the neck of a narrow crevasse. It would take another two weeks for the remainder of the greenskins to be tracked down and exterminated across the rest of the planet.

The 19th Northam Guard took no part in those further actions, though. After losing two company commanders, and with another in critical condition, they couldn't afford anymore losses of such a magnitude.

* * *

Two weeks after the massed armour battles, the Mars Square had been cleared of the worst of the debris, though work crews continued to cut down and extract the twisted wrecks of the massive Stompas bit by bit. Masons attended to the pillars badly scorched by weapons fire, cutting away the most damaged stone and replacing it with cubes of freshly cute material. Beyond all of that, a considerable crowd of citizens and plant workers had gathered, all eyes on a huge platform that towered high above them all. Pict-screens surrounding the square transmitted the events going on at the top of the platform.

Lord General Sordanus of Battle Group XII had gathered, alongside several of his troop commanders, to meet a contingent of representatives from Forge Bolias, to receive their gratitude. Sordanus was immaculate in his silver and gold piped dress uniform in Northam blue, his power sword slung at his waist. Beside him was Colonel Nova, alongside Major's Dolan and Cadogus, both in dress uniform as well. Alongside them was Colonel Fife of the 59th Northam Armour Brigade – outside of his _Violator_ mount– and Colonel Black of the Steel Legion. His rebreather was still in place, though his greatcoat had been swapped for a more suitable dress coat. All uniforms glistened with the awards from previous campaigns.

The Forge contingent was headed by Magos Blamire, who like any self-respecting servant of the Mechanicus, was more machine than man. A series of snaking silver mechandrites writhed from around the hem of his red and black robes while he moved with the subtle whir of servos and tiny motors working augmetic limbs. Though his eyes looked human, when they caught the light a particular way they showed an unnatural green glare.

"Lord General Sordanus, on behalf of the entirety of Bolias Forge, and to all of her workers, please accept our utmost thanks," Blamire announced, his voice sounding thin and raspy due to the fact his mouth had been replaced with a vox speaker some decades before. He stepped close to the Lord General, a tiny servo-skull buzzing close at his side, holding a silver tray laid with several small objects.

"For your service to the Emperor, the Omnissiah, and to Bolias herself, I hereby award you the Merit of Bolias," the Magos announced, and one of his 'tentacles' retrieved a medal – depicting the Mechanicus icon upon a red and black star – and carefully affixed it to the Lord General's chest. Sordanus knotted his knuckles together into the Cog Mechanicum symbol and bowed his head in acknowledgement.

The Magos made his way down the line of officers, affixing the same medal to the breast of each in turn, alongside their current honours. Nova kept eye contact with the Magos, even when he made the Cog Mechanicus and bowed his head. He had never really been comfortable around the servants of the Mechanicus, especially those who felt that they had to replace most of their human flesh with machinery instead. For the Colonel, a bionic arm and leg was more than enough, as long as they allowed him to continue his service to the Emperor. He saw how Blamire took a particular interest in Nova's bionics before he moved on, and even seemed to be smiling in appreciation – despite the vox speaker engulfing the lower half of his face.

Once all of the medals had been awarded, Blamire turned and nodded, and a human servitor with track units replacing its legs trundled forwards, holding a large leather box in its claws. It presented the box to the Magos and then lowered its head in supplication. Holding an arm out, a couple of the Magos' mechandrites snaked in and undid the simple lock, and then opened it with a light creak. He reached in and took out something in black leather, turning to face Nova.

"Colonel Nova," the Magos' vox-speaker crackled, "I have heard much of your regiment's efforts to clear the xenos from our blessed manufactory, and how you in particular slew the Warboss himself, though your sword was destroyed in the process. I thereby commisioned Forge Bolias to create this for you Colonel...I give to you, the warblade, _Dominatus_." Another mechandrite gripped the hilt and drew the warblade free for closer examination.

 _Dominatus_ was similar in design to the sabres of Northam officers, though this one was a good twelve inches longer, the blade immaculate and smelling of anointments and cleaning oils, and engraved with subtle whorls. The basket grip was painted gold and curved to enclose the wielder's hand, and featured an ignition switch just below the tang, where the thumb would sit. Nova picked up the blade carefully, finding the weight was perfectly judged, and that his fingers perfectly slotted into the grooves of the grip. Evidently the artificers had done their research while forging the blade.

He turned a little and held it high, so it caught the light. Tiny pict drones caught the action and transferred it onto the massive screens, where the crowd below roared their approval. Nova noticed how script was set beside an image of the Emperor laying waste to the foes of Mankind.

"It's beautiful," he said, lowering the sword and turning to the Magos, placing it inside of its case again with its sheath. "Thank you, Magos."

Blamire tilted his head in acknowledgement, and at that moment a pair of largely-human servitors stepped forwards, taking up the sword and its black leather scabbard, fixing the ceremonial red sash to the Colonel's body and ensuring that it fell correctly at his left hip for a quick draw. Once it was done, Blamire turned to address the crowd.

"Servants of Bolias! I present to you, Colonel Gaius Nova, slayer of the Ork and your hero in our world's direst hour of need!"

The crowd roared once more, and the other officers on the platform began to applaud and shot out, joining with the crowd's jubilation. They all knew what Nova and his regiment had accomplished two weeks prior, the gains that would not have been possible were it not for the, But as for Nova himself, he just stared off into the middle distance, letting all of the noise wash over him.

 _A sword and a medal. My regiment sacrificed nearly half its strength, and you give me a medal and a damn sword for it? I'm half tempted to test this blade on your metal face, Magos. You and all of your tin sycophants. Never mind if we marched half a million men to be corpse to protect your planet, long as your precious machines were saved._

But he was a veteran commander of the Imperial Guard, and knew when to hold his tongue, and when to make his feelings known. And now was time for the former. He just kept smiling, letting the people of Bolias have their moment of joy.

* * *

 _ **Hand of the Conqueror,**_ **Battle Group XII Fleet, low orbit of Bolias**

Hours later, they were all back on the Lunar-class cruiser _Hand of the Conqueror,_ flagship of Battle Group XII's fleet. It hung in the low orbit of Bolias, and if one peered down at the planet they could see the black sprawl of its great cities and manufactorums, spreading across dusty plains like the legs of a spider perched upon the back of a dirty pebble. Nova had barely been back in the tiny room he had appropriated for his personal quarters for five minutes when the Lord General came to see him.

"Gaius?" asked the still impeccably-dressed Sordanus from the doorway.

"Come in, Lord General," Nova replied, as he lay the sheathed _Dominatus_ down on the worn leather chaise in the far corner, along with his peaked cap. Then the dress uniform jacket came off and went on the back of the chair behind his desk. The single shelf behind his desk held a number of personal items and a handful of books, including a well-read copy of the Tacita Imperia and other essential reading works for Guard commanders.

"Oh please, there's no need for such formalities away from the ceremonies," chuckled the Lord General, stepping into the threshold of the office and removing his white gloves. "How long have we known each other?"

"A long time," smiled Nova, reaching for a decanter of amasec and a pair of glasses.

Konrad Sordanus was a man approaching his late eighties, though light juvant work had somewhat retarded the natural aging process so that he still looked in his early forties, his blonde hair showing some slivers of grey and the odd trace of wrinkles around his eyes. Twenty years ago he had been the commander of the 43rd Northam Guard – and the young Gaius Nova's commander. In fact, it had been on his recommendation that Gaius had received his first promotion to command of the 19th – just as the older man was ushered onto the command staff of the then Lord General Flynn, eventually succeeding the old man.

"Exactly," Sordanus said as he eased himself into the chair on his side of the desk with the subtle whir of servos from his augmetic leg braces. "So I would like to feel as though we can discuss matters which weigh heavily upon your mind. Such as today. I sensed your tension at the ceremony."

"Tension, sir?"

"Yes. Tension as in an overwhelming desire to test that new sword out on Blamire's neck, for one."

"Was it that obvious?" chuckled Nova as he passed the Lord General a filled glass and sat down with his own glass. "Frankly Konrad, I was disappointed by the fact that the workforce of Bolias Forge did not appreciate the sacrifice of my regiment enough. We could have been wiped out to the man and the Magos wouldn't have cared less as long as his precious machines were protected."

"To be fair Colonel, his precious machines supply half of a sub-sector with war machines and weapons for the Guard and PDF forces," Sordanus countered with the practice of someone who had been immersed in politics for years. "You could say the same of any Forge World. But your losses were that severe?"

"Just over fifteen hundred men," Nova sighed. "Just over fifteen hundred men killed, which leaves around the same number left under my command. H Company was almost wiped out to the man, I Company took heavy losses, and Companies A to E were mauled in the final fight. We lost Yendil, and we might lose Lucain as well."

Sordanus sighed. "I'm sorry, Gaius. I know that as a Lord General in the Emperor's service I command tens of thousands of men, but I regret any action that sends many to their deaths, even if the suffering of our kind makes the rest of us stronger." He took a sip of his glass as Nova downed his own in a single go, and reached for a refill. "Any news of Lucain?"

"I was looking at this before we went to that ceremony," explained Nova, holding up a data slate for Sordanus to see. On it were a pair of x-ray images, one showing the stomach and upper torso of a man, and the second showing his shoulders and head. On both images the light grey of the body was riddled with dozens of speckles of white, and on the head there was a huge teardrop-shaped blemish above the left eye socket.

"He was hit by sixty three separate items of shrapnel," Nova explained, "most of it metallic, but some of it human. His crew's loader was shredded by the blast. Teeth and bones splintered into shards. Largest piece hit him above the eye socket and nearly lanced his brain. It's been touch and go for the last two weeks as they extract the shrapnel, though some of it can't be removed for obvious reasons. Not even a cerebral scan should be attempted, they tell me."

"I see," said Sordanus as he reviewed the slate. "And what of Captain Farron?"

"Farron was luckier, if such a concept exists in the Guard," sighed Nova, downing his second glass. "Shrapnel to the lower back, almost severed his spine. He had three of his vertebrae replaced with adamantium, and part of his pelvis too. The medicae had to install some neural bionics just so he'd be able to walk again. He'll live, soon as he wakes form the induced coma."

"Farron is a lot tougher than he looks," Sordanus reassured, sipping his glass, "you need to have faith, Gaius."

"I have faith enough in my men," Nova replied.

 _I just wish I had more faith in the Imperium,_ he added in his mind, looking out of the small viewing portal to his right.

Six years ago, Gaius Nova had headed off into the Thrassian Crusade at the head of eight thousand men, to seek glory and bring enlightenment to the enemies of Mankind. They had achieved both admirably, especially in the Battle of Six Fronts, in which the 19th held off a massive tribe of Orks for three days, despite being attacked on no less than six separate fronts throughout the entire affair.

And then came Elpis, and the Sack of Moon Port.

Elpis was a civilised world, where the 19th and several other regiments serving with the Battle Group XII were meant to have earned some recuperation and rearming before they returned home. But the exact day they touched down, the world fell prey to a massive Chaos incursion, the depraved and decadent practices of its ruling nobility having drawn the attentions of the Ruinous Powers.

It was on the walls of Moon Port that the 19th Northam held back the fury of half a planet of rabid cultists, buying the essential time for High Command to evacuate their comrades off-world. But the price was high indeed, nearly two thousand soldiers giving their lives so that their fellows would live to fight another day. At the height of the battle, enemy saboteurs blew an entry through the walls and ravaged the port's outer markets, killing hundreds, though it would have been higher were it not for the 19th's sacrifice – they were the last to be extracted, fighting to the very bottom of the landing ramps of the shuttles. Nova could still see the brilliant flashes in his mind's eye, as Elpis was subjected to orbital bombardments which turned entire cities to ash. Gaius knew that the Imperium wasn't maintained by kind acts, but the whole incident still left a sour taste in his mouth. The 19th counted three thousand strong in the wake of that disaster.

That had been barely six months ago. And then came Bolias...another notch in the regiment's history, more to be added to the regimental colours.

"Faith is one thing, but we men are just flesh and bone, infinitely fragile in this void," Sordanus said, finishing his drink. "When we get back to Northam, the 19th and the 21st will be on shore leave until further notice. Get your strength back up. You have my word Gaius." Nova had been part way through pouring himself a third glass of amasec when he heard that, and he set the decanter down with a sigh.

"Thank you sir. I appreciate that."

"Of course," the Lord General said as he rose to his feet. "I can't just be known for destroying planets and laying waste to legions, can I? I like to think I still have the common soldier's touch." He smiled a little, and Gaius returned the gesture as he put the decanter back on the shelves. "Now I'm afraid you must excuse me – Segmentum Command is eagerly awaiting my report on the Bridge Deck."

"Of course sir," nodded Nova, getting to his feet and saluting, then making the sign fo the Aquila across his chest. "The Emperor Protects."

"The Emperor Protects," Sordanus replied, mirroring the gesture, and then walked out and away down the passage. He'd barely been gone for a minute when Commisar Dorn appeared.

"Colonel? Are you decent?"

"Yes, come in Willem," Nova replied, as he hung his dress jacket up on its hangar and hung it within his dresser. The Commisar stepped inside, his face as stern as ever beneath his brand new peaked cap. The winged skull on the brim glinted in the low light. "Are the men settled?"

"Yes. I think they're too exhausted to do anything else, to be honest sir," Dorn answered, and it was then that Nova noticed he held a data slate in his hand. "There was an issue I wanted to raise with you, sir."

"A discipline issue?" asked Nova as he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, revealing the bare adamantium plates of his bionic replacement. He reached in with an index finger and worked open the casing on the side of his bionic. "Don't take this personally Dorn, but I'm fairly sure you can manage such things on your own."

"I appreciate that Colonel," said Dorn humourlessly. As good as he was at being a Commisar, Willem Dorn had apparently had his sense of humour surgically removed sometime after birth. "But it involves another regiment. A slight against us."

There was a quiet hiss as Nova disengaged the clamps holding his bionic forearm, and he popped it free of his still-human flesh, setting it down inside of a small suspension field unit on the lowest of his shelves. The limb floated there serenely as Nova turned back round, his left arm now ending at a stump of smooth skin just below the elbow joint. He took up a handkerchief and wiped away a thin sheen of sweat, and then applied some ungent cream.

"The Thrassians?" asked Nova, as he took the proffered data slate and started to skim read the screen. He knew the basics of what had happened at the field hospital and had heard Captain Abel's concerns at length, but now reading through the slate...he saw exactly what had gone down.

The slate was now showing pict-captures of a lone display scaffold off to the side of Expressway-13, on the south approach to the palnet's capital. It had been turned into a makeshift gibbet when the picts had been taken, and half a dozen corpses dangled from them. Even though the picts weren't of perfect quality, Gaius could see the black uniforms that each of them wore, decorated with red silk and gold braid.

"Commisars," said Nova.

"Yes," Dorn nodded, "and all of them wore the Thrassian cap badge. Our brothers in the 21st found them when they were moving south to relieve the defence of that field hospital. That gibbet had been set up barely five hundred yards from where Abel and his men were fighting. They reported the Thrassians executed a mass retreat, leaving them unsupported."

"I've read the initial report," Nova answered, scrolling down. "What's your suggestion, Commisar?" he then asked, passing the slate back.

"The fact they executed a sudden retreat and left a fellow Guard unit to weather a sizeable Ork assault on their own is cause enough for summary execution," Dorn explained levelly, "but they didn't stop there. They as good as executed half a dozen of my fellow Commisars in an effort to avoid the consequences, and they're about to find out they didn't get away with it at all. Major Kandavin – who commanded that particular detachment of Thrassians – is two decks below us as we speak."

Nova couldn't help but contain his smile. It was exactly what he expected from Dorn, and hoped that Major Kandavin had his will prepared. "Alright, do what you need to, Willem." The Commisar just nodded, then snapped out a sharp salute and walked out without another word.

Once he was gone, Sergeant Archer's head suddenly came around the side of the door, peering in at his CO. "Does that mean someone is about to have a very bad day, sir?"

"Yes sergeant," smiled Nova, as he began to undo the buttons on the front of his jacket. It took him longer than usual due to only having the one hand. "But it means one less incompetent within Guard command."

"Just a few thousand more to go, eh?" asked Archer, entering the room and dropping an armful of message wafers down onto the cluttered desk. Nova gave him a level stare. As reliable as Archer was as an adjutant and personal bodyguard, his tongue was a bit too loose for its own good. All it took was for one over-starched officer or aide to be standing within earshot and that would have been it. Goodbye promising career.

"Is the service set?" asked Gaius instead, a question that briefly wrong-footed Archer and left him searching for the answer.

"Waiting on you, Colonel."

"Very good. Send word ahead. I'll be there shortly."

* * *

Down on storage deck 19, the Northam regiments had appropriated one of the massive storage spaces for the storage of their fallen. Hundreds of bodybags, accumulated over six years of near-constant warfare, were piled high in the back of the cavernous space, each one affixed with a paper tag identifying their name, rank, and other personal information. Some of the bags were awfully small. Warfare didn't always leave intact corpses. Even more were just missing. They left a lot of bodies behind on Elpis.

A particular custom of Northam stated that the bodies of all her fighting men would be bought home if at all possible, to be returned to the soil and ensure their fighting spirit was maintained for future generations - a superstition born by some of the ancient noble families that had first settled the world. It wasn't always a possibility as most Imperial commanders wouldn't authorise using up valuable hold space for dead bodies (due to all manner of ethical and hygienic reasons), but it was a good thing that the Lord General was a son of Northam himself, so he understood entirely.

Gaius Nova stood at the head of a procession of fellow officers from the 19th, including Dolan, Abel and over two dozen platoon leaders from all of the main battle companies, and a couple of the reserve companies. Sergeant Henderson of H Company was the only one there from H Company, one of the last few remaining.

Nova was in his plain grey fatigues now, the empty left sleeve of his jacket pinned up tightly. A Ministorum priest walked to and fro, swinging an incense burner and reciting the words of common prayers, including the Benediction of Terra. Nova listened only vaguely, staring at the piled bags. Ever the consummate and professional officer, he didn't show his sorrow, though his heart was as ever, worn down that little bit more. He remember so many of those young, eager faces, six years ago, ready to travel the galaxy and burn the enemies of the Imperium of Man to ash.

Hell, once upon a time he had been a young, eager face himself.

"This is the price we pay, gentlemen," Nova announced, his voice low and strained as he glanced back at his fellow officers. "Never forget the ones that have already paid the toll." On Bolias, that toll included another thousand of Northam Prime's sons. Tears ran down Henderson's cheek, and he quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand. Elsewhere, the expression of Lieutenant Lexanus was unreadable as he looked on at the folded plastic bag that held the remains of his fallen company commander. If he was torn up by the loss, he didn't show it at all.

The priest continued on his way, mumbling more prayers and litanies as he went. Some of the officers began to recite in quiet, strained voices, as Nova stepped forwards and laid a handful of lone paper tags on a small steel table beside the most recent bodybags. They belonged to those bodies who couldn't be retrieved due to being crushed by rubble or complete disintegration from heavy weaponry. Many of them knew first-hand the damage a Stompa's guns could inflict upon soft, unprotected infantry. Back home, those names would still receive their own graves.

The priest finished his prayers, set down his burner and turned to regard the assembled Northam officers. With a slight nod, he moved in and blessed each of them in turn, lowering their heads and kissing their foreheads, ending each gesture with 'the Emperor Protects' as he went. Nova was the last to receive the blessing, and as the priest moved away, all of them bowed their heads and made the sign of the Aquila.

"The Emperor Protects," they all chorused.

"May He guide their mortal souls to join Him beyond the Eternity Gates."

* * *

 **152.966.M41, Northam Sector, Segmentum Obscuras**

Six days of Warp travel was inconsequential to the men of the 19th – many of the more hardened survivors of the regiment had endured nearly a whole year of Warp travel on their trip to the distant Saint Heinrich's world, at the very northeastern tip of the Segmentum – though there was always a couple of more sensitive souls who spent half of the time in the sick bay, fighting back the urge to vomit and pestering the medicae staff for pills. The remainder of the regiment passed the time the best way they knew how – running fitness circuits of the decks, maintaining their edge in the firing ranges and practice cages, or wiling away the hours with drink, regicide and card games. Others still kept to themselves, haunted by the spectres of fallen comrades.

On Deck 14-D, Sergeant Ulyesses Bowman sat cross-legged on the floor at the front of a steel foot locker, facing the remainder of his squad, now reduced to five including himself as they played a game of Hearts and Titans. His eyes flicked down to his hand and then up at the faces of his fellow players, trying to look for any tells. It was hard with Joplis, as the younger man was just hurting from the natural act of breathing, his face a constant grimace of pain. Stein, on the other hand, couldn't stop himself from grinning like an idiot whenever he had a good hand. So naturally he was already fifty credits down and ready to go all in.

At the opposite end of the hold, Lieutenant Shaw of A Company was flipping through the back pages of his Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer, the small black book a well-read version by then. He was surrounded by the other members of his platoon, passing the time in idle conversation or other activities. The Lieutenant always did the same, after each conflict the 19th endured. He needed to remind himself of his faith.

Down in the training cages, Manfred Dolan stood in the centre of a ring of automated training servitors, each armed with a wooden quarterstaff as they stomped after the officer and swept at him once in range. Rather than his power fist he was using a blunted training sabre, fending off attacks and lashing out with wide swipes and the odd thrust. When he caught the sensors on the servitor's bodies, the constructs stepped back and froze, the lights on their faces blinking out. A few seconds later, they reactivated and came after him once more.

He felt a subtle motion through the whole ship, and then felt the lurch as the massive ship exited the Warp. But the momentary distraction gave one of the servitors time to close in and it promptly slapped him on the left ear with its staff. Dolan jerked sideways, and then dropped low and rolled to avoid the encroaching sweeps of two more. He came up and fended off another with a quick forward thrust to the breastplate.

"Shut down!" he yelled, and then there was a low hum as the servitors shut down on the spot, their arms and bodies going slack as the life left them. He let out a sigh and rubbed at his sore ear, as an announcement sounded over the ship's vox system.

' _Warp travel ceasing. Re-entering real space.'_

A hundred feet above his head, Colonel Nova, alongside several fellow commanding officers of Battle Group XII had been passing the time in one of the vessel's many recreational bars as the announcement sounded and then they saw the viewing portals removing their protective covers, and they could all see the unlimited void outside, lit by the twinkle of countless stars.

"Oh, are we there already?" asked one of the Thrassian Colonels, but Nova paid him no mind as he set his balloon glass down and got to his feet. He still wasn't too keen on the Thrassians right then. He crossed to the nearest portal and peered out, though of course he couldn't see much. He still forgot that even though the ship he was on was five kilometres long, it was still just a tiny, infinitesimal part of the galaxy.

"Welcome to the Northam system," announced Colonel Trice of the 21st Northam as he took up position at a portal beside Nova. "She is small and on the edge of nowhere in particular, but she's still home to a lot of men on this vessel. Should be an hour or so from Northam Prime herself."

"Hour and a half," Nova corrected. "Not the first time I've done this journey, Trice."

True to Nova's word, it took just under ninety minutes for the journey to finish. The rest of the officers didn't stay as Nova and Trice watched from the viewing portals as a tiny speck in the distance began to resolve itself, and then steadily grew larger as they approached. At one point the _Hand of the Conqueror's_ sister ship, the _Hand of Destiny,_ came into view at their side – an immense, cathedral-like structure of ribbed steel and towering masts, covered in thousands of blinking lights and bristling with dozens of cannons and missile batteries.

"The achievements of mankind," Trice mused as the ship pulled ahead of them and then began to pull away on a separate course. "And now we bestride the stars themselves." Trice was known for talking some grox crap once he'd had a few drinks.

"Yes, when we're not fighting for our very existence," Nova responded dryly, as he turned his attention back to the tiny speck they had been watching for the last hour.

It resolved itself more and more, gradually growing to fill almost the entire viewing portal. A dusty, craggy orb, its surface almost entirely dominated by grey plains and sheer mountain peaks which divided the world into its continental landmasses. And then there was the massive ocean which covered over a third of the planet surface, immense and deep enough to contain any one of the world's mountains. Low orbit was filled with the blinking of lights and the glow of orbital stations and dry docks, already populated by numerous vessels belonging to Rogue Traders, and other Imperial missions.

It may have been a dusty orb on the edge of Imperial space, but to Nova and the men of the 19th, it was home.

Northam Prime.

 **A/N: And the Pride of Northam return home. So as I said at the start of this story, this was intended as an introduction to the 19th Northam Guard, and sometime in the future there will be a full-length story following the regiment's future adventures in the Segmentum Obscuras. While several characters will remain, there will also be a focus upon the new recruits to the regiment following the Thrassian Crusade. As to when I will make a start on publishing this new story is not known yet, even if I have made a start on a couple of the early chapters.**

 **But until then, thank for you reading and reviewing this story, all feedback is appreciated. Thanks again, and hopefully you will see me on these pages in the not-too distant future.**

 **Jammer69er**


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